Apple Seeds 7th OS X 10.11 El Capitan Beta to Developers, Reseeds 5th Beta to Public Testers

Apple today released the seventh beta of OS X 10.11 El Capitan to developers for testing purposes, two weeks after releasing the sixth El Capitan beta and more than two months after unveiling the new operating system at its 2015 Worldwide Developers Conference. Apple has also re-seeded the fifth public beta of OS X El Capitan to public beta testers after accidentally releasing it yesterday and then pulling it.

The update, build number 15A263e for developers and 15A262e for public beta testers, is available through the software update mechanism in the Mac App Store and through the Apple Developer Center.

In recent weeks, Apple has been pushing rapid updates for OS X El Capitan, all of which have focused on under-the-hood performance improvements and bug fixes to optimize the operating system ahead of its public debut. Few design changes have been made in the most recent betas, but beta 7 includes some minor tweaks like a new Safari welcome screen, a new color for the El Capitan logo in "About This Mac," and a setting to disable the "Shake mouse pointer to locate" feature.

OS X El Capitan is designed to improve features introduced with OS X Yosemite, focusing on performance and user experience. A number of apps and processes on the Mac are much faster with El Capitan, and the introduction of Metal for Mac brings system-level graphics rendering that's 40 percent more efficient.

As for user experience, El Capitan includes a new systemwide San Francisco font, a revamped Mission Control feature, a new Split View feature for using two full-screen apps at once, deeper functionality for Spotlight, and several new features for Safari, including Pinned Sites for housing frequently visited websites and a universal mute button that quiets all tabs.

OS X 10.11 El Capitan is available to both registered developers and public beta testers. Apple plans to release El Capitan to the public in the fall.