Apple today seeded the third beta of OS X 10.10.4 to developers, approximately two weeks after releasing the second OS X 10.10.4 beta and three weeks after releasing the first OS X 10.10.4 beta. OS X 10.10.4 has been in testing since mid-April, following the early April release of OS X 10.10.3, which included the new Photos for OS X app.
The beta, build 14E17e, can be downloaded through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store or through the Mac Developer Center. Apple is asking developers to focus on Photos, Migration, and Arabic and Hebrew languages.
OS X 10.10.3 introduced several consumer-facing changes including the new Photos for OS X app, a redesigned emoji picker, new diversified emoji, and more, but OS X 10.10.4 appears to be an under-the-hood update that brings performance enhancements and bug fixes. Thus far, OS X 10.10.4 betas have not included outward facing design changes or feature additions.
The first two updates to OS X Yosemite, OS X 10.10.1 and OS X 10.10.2, were also minor behind-the-scenes updates that improved performance through bug fixes and enhancements.
Top Rated Comments
There are likely multiple bugs. But that doesn't change the fact that they could (and damn well should ASAP) fix the bugs we KNOW ABOUT,
the most notorious of which is the discoveryd bug, the fact that there is something wrong with the protocol used by base stations to hold onto (and later update) the names of Apple devices, leading to constantly changing names (and things not working because the expected name has been changed).
There is likely a second, different, bug that's related to iOS WiFi synching. This occurs even when the target mac has NOT done the "let's change my name for random reasons" thing, and appears to be a bug on the iOS side, not the mac side.
In addition to all this, there's just basically STUPID UI stuff that they should have fixed years ago. It's nice that my phone automatically connects to, say, the MacysFreeWiFi network when I'm in a Macys. BUT the system should at least test that that WiFi network is actually freaking working (and not connect, or display a broken WiFi icon) if it can't use the WiFi to actually reach the outside world.
The big problem behind all this is Apple's utter stony silence on the issue. Do they even CARE that there is a problem? Do they have a plan for fixing it? When can we expect progress? etc
MS used to be the big bad evil, but over the past few years they've become a LOT more pleasant than Apple to deal with regarding this sort of thing --- substantially more forthcoming about issues and schedules (and, if we're being honest, substantially less likely to write/release amateur code that exhibits these sorts of low-level OS-type issues in the first place).
The problem with "the wifi bug" is that I doubt it's A bug. It's likely not as simple as that.
One is OS X and the other is iOS. :|
Photos is version 1.0.1 now
Are you sure it's actually a WiFi problem and not the problems that have been reported with discoveryd since the Yosemite beta? A lot of the "WiFi issues" people see are actually issues with discoveryd.