Apple Giving Retail Employees Beta Access to OS X Mavericks

NewImageLast year, roughly a month before Apple released OS X Mountain Lion, it extended its beta program to certain Apple Retail Store staff members. This year, the company appears to be doing something similar.

9to5Mac reports that retail store staff are again being invited to try the beta of OS X Mavericks.

You are invited to participate in the pre-release OS X Mavericks seed program. Participation, including submitting feedback, is completely voluntary and not an expectation of your job. If you accept, we will provide you with a pre-release version of OS X Mavericks to install and use. You will get to preview all of the exciting new features like iBooks, Maps, Calendar, Safari, iCloud Keychain, Multiple Displays, Notifications, Finder Tabs, Tags, and much more! You should use OS X Mavericks only your personal computer and on your personal time. Apple will provide you with ways to submit feedback on your experiences with OS X Mavericks, should you choose to do so. Apple also asks that you use future builds of OS X Mavericks as they are made available. The responses from prior seed programs have been overwhelmingly positive. Thank you to everyone who participated!

The site also notes that Apple has provided prerelease versions of Mavericks to its AppleSeed beta testing group.

Before WWDC, a leak suggested that Apple was well into the development of OS X 10.9, with a build number of 13A451 appearing on a recent internal release. One possible implication of the high build number was that Apple was closer to a public release of Mavericks after its unveiling than with previous OS X beta releases.

Related Forum: OS X Mavericks

Popular Stories

iPadOS 26 App Windowing

Apple Explains Why iPads Don't Just Run macOS

Friday June 13, 2025 7:46 am PDT by
iPadOS 26 allows iPads to function much more like Macs, with a new app windowing system, a swipe-down menu bar at the top of the screen, and more. However, Apple has stopped short of allowing iPads to run macOS, and it has now explained why. In an interview this week with Swiss tech journalist Rafael Zeier, Apple's software engineering chief Craig Federighi said that iPadOS 26's new Mac-like ...
iPhone 17 Pro Blue Feature Tighter Crop

iPhone 17 Pro Launching in Three Months With These 12 New Features

Saturday June 14, 2025 5:45 pm PDT by
The iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are three months away, and there are plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of June 2025:Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone X through iPhone 14 Pro have a...
iphone 16 pro models 1

17 Reasons to Wait for the iPhone 17

Thursday June 12, 2025 8:58 am PDT by
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models simultaneously, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 17 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect from Apple's 2025 smartphone lineup. If you skipped the iPhone...
Logitech Logo Feature

Logitech Announces Two New Accessories for WWDC

Friday June 13, 2025 7:22 am PDT by
Alongside WWDC this week, Logitech announced notable new accessories for the iPad and Apple Vision Pro. The Logitech Muse is a spatially-tracked stylus developed for use with the Apple Vision Pro. Introduced during the WWDC 2025 keynote address, Muse is intended to support the next generation of spatial computing workflows enabled by visionOS 26. The device incorporates six degrees of...
iOS 26 Screens

Here Are All the iOS 26 Features That Require iPhone 15 Pro or Newer

Thursday June 12, 2025 4:53 am PDT by
With iOS 26, Apple has introduced some major changes to the iPhone experience, headlined by the new Liquid Glass redesign that's available across all compatible devices. However, several of the update's features are exclusive to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models, since they rely on Apple Intelligence. The following features are powered by on-device large language models and machine...
CarPlay Liquid Glass Dark

Apple to Let iPhone Users Watch Videos on CarPlay Screen While Parked

Thursday June 12, 2025 6:16 am PDT by
Apple this week announced that iPhone users will soon be able to watch videos right on the CarPlay screen in supported vehicles. iPhone users will be able to wirelessly stream videos to the CarPlay screen using AirPlay, according to Apple. For safety reasons, video playback will only be available when the vehicle is parked, to prevent distracted driving. The connected iPhone will be able to...
iOS 26 on Three iPhones

Hate iOS 26's Liquid Glass Design? Here's How to Tone It Down

Wednesday June 11, 2025 4:22 pm PDT by
iOS 26 features a whole new design material that Apple calls Liquid Glass, with a focus on transparency that lets the content on your display shine through the controls. If you're not a fan of the look, or are having trouble with readability, there is a step that you can take to make things more opaque without entirely losing out on the new look. Apple has multiple Accessibility options that ...
Mac Studio Feature

Apple Begins Selling Refurbished Mac Studio With M4 Max and M3 Ultra Chips at a Discount

Thursday June 12, 2025 10:14 am PDT by
Apple today added Mac Studio models with M4 Max and M3 Ultra chips to its online certified refurbished store in the United States, Canada, Japan, Singapore, and many European countries, for the first time since they were released in March. As usual for refurbished Macs, prices are discounted by approximately 15% compared to the equivalent new models on Apple's online store. Note that Apple's ...
iOS 26 Feature

Apple Seeds Revised iOS 26 Developer Beta to Fix Battery Issue

Friday June 13, 2025 10:15 am PDT by
Apple today provided developers with a revised version of the first iOS 26 beta for testing purposes. The update is only available for the iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 models, so if you're running iOS 26 on an iPhone 14 or earlier, you won't see the revised beta. Registered developers can download the new beta software through the Settings app on each device. The revised beta addresses an...

Top Rated Comments

jameslmoser Avatar
157 months ago
I know we call this a beta but think about what they have and have not changed. This is 10.8 code base with some new tweaks here and there. I would expect it to be smooth. This is not IOS 7 which has a whole host of features. The battery saving stuff is the only new under the hood tech in this build. The remainder are clip ons like maps or minor re-works of code multimonitor support. I would expect this release to come out far sooner than latter. IOS 7 i expect to be a very very long slog through beta hell and even into early GM releases to much code base change and to many new features that are core to the OS.
You are joking right? With all the compressed memory and cpu timer coalesing changes there was a lot of actual OS changes. Unlike Mountain Lion that was just a bunch of added on apps, this is an actual OS update.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
leon44 Avatar
157 months ago
In the face of all the developers who whine about how people shouldn't be allowed access to betas. Beta testing needs real world users, if Apple wanted to crack down on non-devs getting hold of betas they would, but it's actually an advantage to have more testers.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
agenda893 Avatar
157 months ago
I'll be waiting for 10.10 Iceman.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
sziehr Avatar
157 months ago
:rolleyes: I wish they would give it to WWDC Attendees, I had access to it up until yesterday.

Registered (paid) iOS developer but cannot work with some new Xcode features that require 10.9 and 10.9 Server :mad:

I wish they would just unify the damn dev system. If i write OSX i might want to write IOS ETC why pay twice it makes no sense.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
teknishn Avatar
157 months ago
The early rumor that Mavericks may be close to done is an absolute falsehood. I can tell you that its very far from primetime ready. Based on my own use since WWDC, I am quite surprised that they are releasing it to employees this early.

I haven't run into any major show stoppers, but I have run into a TON of bugs and problems that are severely annoying. Don't confuse this explanation with any complaints whatsoever though. I enjoy testing beta software and helping Apple with bug reports. Its too early for me to give my own eta on Mavericks until we get a couple more releases in to get a gauge of the pace etc. Im pretty antsy for the next releases of both Mavericks and iOS7 to see some more polish. Super want on iOS7 for iPad.

----------

I know this is a little off-topic, but for the life of me I can't understand why it is so difficult to remove non-appstore applications on my Mac (Lion) when it is otherwise such a wonderful OS. I hope Mavericks improves this...a lot. I don't understand why I have to purchase AppDelete (nice app, BTW!) in order to remove anything (dragging to the trashcan from the App. Folder, and especially Launchpad, is an exercise in futility).

I hate Windows, and it took them decades to figure out how to handle dependencies and versioning, but at least adding and removing programs there is a no-brainer now! I am hoping this gets fixed; or, it's because I am a version behind everyone else.

Removing apps is as simple as throwing them in the trash. When you run a new app in OSX for the first time it creates a few tiny files to store preferences. If you want to go through the trouble of deleting a few tiny and insignificant config files you can, but its completely unnecessary and has no affect on the system if you leave them. Unlike Windows, there is no registry. Furthermore, when you uninstall apps in windows, it does NOT ever remove them completely. Those apps often still leave behind directories and ALWAY leave behind most of their registry entries and dlls
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MikhailT Avatar
157 months ago
the REAL QUESTION is.......if youve got a recent MAC, is it gonna be FREE......


....or will i have to bend over for $20 on the upgrade.....



anyone know?

No, as long as you don't see any mentions of Mav on your Mac purchase or the "Up-to-Date" program starts, you won't get a free update.

Apple usually give free updates to 1-2 months within the OS release. In this case, it's the Fall, so you're not likely to get any free updates.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)