Apple on Thursday notified developers by email that they could begin downloading and testing a new pre-release build of the Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard operating system, the second beta of the software released this month.

As was predicted by AppleInsider on Tuesday, the distribution is indeed labeled Mac OS X 10.6 build 10A335. It arrives just three weeks after the last external test release, a sign that Apple may start requesting feedback on new builds more frequently as it strives to wrap up development of the software by the summer.

The Cupertino-based company reportedly made no mention of any significant changes in Thursday’s beta but continued encouraging developers to start working on and testing any 64-bit kernel extensions that their third-party products will require under Snow Leopard.

Apple did list a handful of bugs affecting build 10A335, people familiar with the matter say. Among them were crashes in QuickTime X player, application crashes under Rosetta, problems with Migration Assistant and odd errors being spit out by the new version of Disk Utility.

Arriving in tandem with new client beta of Snow Leopard was an identically labeled build of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Server, those same people say. And unlike the client release, Apple is reported to have mentioned a handful of advances new to the build.

In particular, an easier to use and configure version of Podcast Producer is said to pave the way for picture-in-picture podcasts and allow remote management of cameras over the web using a Mac, PC or iPhone. Other notable changes reportedly include new junk mail filters in Mail Server, better automated account creation in Calendar Server, and completely re-written certificate management code.

Readers interested in keeping track of Snow Leopard developments can do so by subscribing to AppleInsider’s Mac OS X 10.6 topics page.

source:appleinsider