Apple Seeds Eighth Beta of OS X El Capitan to Developers, Sixth Beta to Public Testers

Apple today released the eighth beta of OS X El Capitan to developers for testing purposes, nearly two weeks after releasing the seventh El Capitan beta and more than two months after unveiling the operating system at its 2015 Worldwide Developers Conference.

Today's update, build 15A279b, is available through the software update mechanism in the Mac App Store and through the Apple Developer Center. There's also a new sixth beta for public beta testers, which is identical to the eighth developer beta.

It is not clear if this update will add any outward-facing changes to El Capitan, as many of the prior betas have focused on under-the-hood performance improvements and bug fixes to optimize the operating system ahead of its public release, but beta 7 did add some minor cosmetic updates to El Capitan.

As an update complementary to OS X Yosemite, OS X El Capitan builds on the myriad features introduced last year. Behind-the-scenes improvements in El Capitan make a number of apps and processes on the Mac faster, and the introduction of Metal makes system-level graphics rendering 40 percent more efficient.


El Capitan introduces a new system-wide font, a revamped Mission Control feature, a split-view feature for using two full-screen apps at once, deeper functionality for Spotlight, and improvements to Safari that include Pinned Sites and a universal mute button.

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

Related Forum: OS X El Capitan

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Top Rated Comments

Sanlitun Avatar
129 months ago
I'm making a mental note to haunt the next iOS beta thread with confusing and irrelevant messages about OS X....
Score: 29 Votes (Like | Disagree)
maflynn Avatar
129 months ago
[MOD NOTE]
This thread is about OS X, not iOS. Please stay on topic.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
TimUSCA Avatar
129 months ago
Those of you waiting on iOS 9, I wouldn't hold your breath...

Given the lack of iOS 9 betas, I can only assume it's at a point where they're ready to add Force Touch but can't until new hardware is announced.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ErikGrim Avatar
129 months ago
So - I will never install any beta from Apple - never again this mess and they now seems incompetent to me.
Apple seems incompetent for you installing a pre-release and unfinished product. Riiiiiiiiiiiight...
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bbeagle Avatar
129 months ago
Winter is coming
One more big update
Still 23 more days of Summer left, and WINTER is coming???
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
GadgetBen Avatar
129 months ago
Never put beta OS's over your current system. If you want to be dumb enough, at least back up all your data.
The Public Beta works fine and I installed it on my 5k iMac, stop scaremongering. I am not a developer and I have the public beta installed and it is more stable than any GM of Yosemite!

daditude2284 and tdb2284 go for it, its a vast improvement on Yosemite.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)