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Not even three months after publicly launching Mac OS X 10.6, coined Snow Leopard, Apple is already working on the next addition to the OS X family. This information has been confirmed by database changes to the open source “launchd” framework which deals with OS X booting and administering running processes, as it cites an error message that references a “11A47” build number. The particular citation is as seen below:

< rdar://problem/7386864>

11A47: SecurityAgent no longer visible via Accessibility

Apple’s build numbers are composed of a prefixing number that indicates the major release version, which is followed by a letter which indicates the minor release version, and a numerical suffix which indicates the status of that version throughout its development. Mac OS X Leopard had a build number of 9A571 when it first launched, Snow Leopard had a build number of 10A432 when it shipped publicly, the 10.6.1 update followed with a build number of 10B504, and the 10.6.2 update finally came last week with the build number of 10C540. You can clearly see the evolution of the builds through these examples, and that it only makes sense that the new 11A47 build is in reference to OS X 10.7 (of course, in its very early stages as its numerical suffix is only 2 digits). It’s safe to say that Apple has likely been working on OS X 10.7 for at least the last month or two.

It’s nice to see that Apple is so quick to begin development of the next major addition to the Mac OS X family, although it’s not necessarily surprising as development can be quite long due to the time it takes to polish and fix all the bugs in major operating system releases. Current speculation of OS X 10.7 is that it will focus much more on end-user changes and new additions, unlike Snow Leopard’s mostly behind-the-scenes fixes and updates.

Via [MAC.BLORGE]