Five days ago, we reported that Apple was gearing up to release a new build of the OS X Lion Developer Preview. Sure enough, that’s exactly what they did today as build 11A419 has been seeded to developers.
This matters for a couple of reasons. First, it’s the first update to the OS X Lion preview which many developers complained was fairly buggy. Despite the bugs, the preview went a month without any updates. More importantly, this is the build that Apple is considering to be a “GM1” revision internally, we hear. And yes, it’s said to be much more stable and complete than the previous build.
You’ll note that the build number has jumped pretty dramatically: from 11A390 for the initial build to 11A419. That seems to indicate that a number of builds were tested out internally before this one was released.
Having said that, it’s unlikely that this will be the actual “Golden Master” copy. We’re still a solid two months away from Apple’s WWDC event where Lion will be a key area of focus. Apple may attempt to launch Lion there, but more likely is that the release candidates is handed out to developers there. A public launch would come shortly thereafter.
This developer preview 2 launch follows a smaller update that came through earlier so that developers could get this latest build of Lion through the Mac App Store. As we previously reported, that initial roll-out was less than ideal.
Again, this build of OS X Lion is for developers only.