It appears as if the public release of OS X Mavericks 10.9.2 is imminent, as some employees at Apple are reportedly receiving prerelease builds of the update.
Some employees have been provided with a version of OS X 10.9.2 identified as build 13C64, people familiar with the matter told AppleInsider on Monday. The forthcoming update includes the usual security fixes, but also adds a number of new features to Mavericks, most notably the ability to make and receive FaceTime audio calls.
Other features include call waiting support for FaceTime audio and video calls, along with an added ability to block incoming messages from individual senders in the Messages application.
Internal release notes also indicate the update will improve the accuracy of the unread messages count in Mail, and should also resolve an issue that prevents Mail from receiving new messages from certain providers.
Other fixes and changes expected to be included in OS X 10.9.2 are:
- Improved “Autofill” capabilities in Safari
- A fix for an issue that could cause audio distortion
- Improved reliability when connecting to a file server using SMB2
- A fix for an issue that could cause VPN connections to disconnect
- Improved VoiceOver navigation in Mail and Finder
The release notes don’t indicate if the build fixes the recently exposed SSL security flaw that it shared with iOS, which was fixed in a security update last week. Apple has promised the OS X flaw will be fixed “very soon.”
Update: AppleInsider reports that a person with access to the prerelease build has confirmed to them that the latest version of OS X 10.9.2 does indeed patch the so-called “goto fail” SSL security flaw.
