Snow Leopard Build 10A286 Seeded to Developers

Apple has seeded a new version of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, termed Build 10A286, to developers. World of Apple republishes the seed notes, which highlight three significant changes in the new build: a new QuickTime user interface, Cocoa-based Finder features, and Safari 4 beta as the default browser.

QuickTime Player
The new QuickTime Player has a new minimal UI and is focused on playback.

Finder
Finder includes a new Cocoa Desktop, Info Window and Contextual Menu

Safari
Safari 4 beta is included in the seed as the default browser.

World of Apple also notes that developers are being encouraged to run the new build in 64-bit mode, signaling a "major shift" in that direction.

Snow Leopard is due for release sometime in 2009, and Apple has been making steady progress on the new operating system, as demonstrated by consistent releases of new builds to developers. Apple has said that they are focusing on quality and performance in Snow Leopard rather than introducing significant numbers of new features.