Apple Preparing to Seed Developer Builds of OS X 10.7.5

os x lion iconWith the public release of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion coming next month, some have wondered whether the current OS X 10.7.4 will be the final maintenance update for OS X Lion. OS X 10.7.4 was released to the public in early May, and the timeline would be tight for releasing another update prior to the debut of Mountain Lion.

AppleInsider now reports that Apple is preparing to begin seeding builds of a new OS X 10.7.5 to developers in the coming days. No details on the upcoming release have yet been revealed, as the first sign of impending developer builds typically comes from Apple's developer programs simply posting new discussion forums related to the releases.

The new Retina MacBook Pro is currently shipping with a special build of OS X 10.7.4 to include Retina-capable versions of core OS X apps, although Retina capabilities have been showing with increasing visibility throughout the various versions of OS X Lion and now developer builds of OS X Mountain Lion. It is unknown whether these new machines will receive a special build of OS X 10.7.5 or if Apple will incorporate the new Retina display capabilities into a single OS X 10.7.5 build available for all Macs even if they do not support ultra-high resolutions.

A timetable for a public release of OS X 10.7.5 is also currently unknown, including whether it will appear before or after OS X Mountain Lion is released to the public. Apple has on occasion released full maintenance updates after the launch of a successor operating system, most recently with Mac OS X 10.4.11 arriving nearly three weeks after the debut of Mac OS X Leopard, but the company typically limits its older operating systems to security fixes once their successors have launched.

Popular Stories

iOS 26

iOS 26.2 Coming Soon With These 8 New Features on Your iPhone

Thursday December 11, 2025 8:49 am PST by
Apple seeded the second iOS 26.2 Release Candidate to developers earlier this week, meaning the update will be released to the general public very soon. Apple confirmed iOS 26.2 would be released in December, but it did not provide a specific date. We expect the update to be released by early next week. iOS 26.2 includes a handful of new features and changes on the iPhone, such as a new...
iOS 26

iOS 26.4 and iOS 27 Features Revealed in New Leak

Friday December 12, 2025 10:56 am PST by
Macworld's Filipe Espósito today revealed a handful of features that Apple is allegedly planning for iOS 26.4, iOS 27, and even iOS 28. The report said the features are referenced within the code for a leaked internal build of iOS 26 that is not meant to be seen by the public. However, it appears that Espósito and/or his sources managed to gain access to it, providing us with a sneak peek...
AirPods Pro Firmware Feature

Apple Releases New Firmware for AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods Pro 3

Thursday December 11, 2025 11:28 am PST by
Apple today released new firmware designed for the AirPods Pro 3 and the prior-generation AirPods Pro 2. The AirPods Pro 3 firmware is 8B30, up from 8B25, while the AirPods Pro 2 firmware is 8B28, up from 8B21. There's no word on what's include in the updated firmware, but the AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods Pro 3 are getting expanded support for Live Translation in the European Union in iOS...
iOS 26

Apple Releases iOS 26.2 With Alarms for Reminders, Lock Screen Changes, Enhanced Safety Alerts and More

Friday December 12, 2025 10:10 am PST by
Apple today released iOS 26.2, the second major update to the iOS 26 operating system that came out in September, iOS 26.2 comes a little over a month after iOS 26.1 launched. ‌iOS 26‌.2 is compatible with the ‌iPhone‌ 11 series and later, as well as the second-generation ‌iPhone‌ SE. The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones over-the-air by going to Settings >...
Google maps feaure

Google Maps Quietly Added This Long-Overdue Feature for Drivers

Wednesday December 10, 2025 2:52 am PST by
Google Maps on iOS quietly gained a new feature recently that automatically recognizes where you've parked your vehicle and saves the location for you. Announced on LinkedIn by Rio Akasaka, Google Maps' senior product manager, the new feature auto-detects your parked location even if you don't use the parking pin function, saves it for up to 48 hours, and then automatically removes it once...
AirTag 2 Mock Feature

Apple AirTag 2: Four New Features Found in iOS 26 Code

Thursday December 11, 2025 10:31 am PST by
The AirTag 2 will include a handful of new features that will improve tracking capabilities, according to a new report from Macworld. The site says that it was able to access an internal build of iOS 26, which includes references to multiple unreleased products. Here's what's supposedly coming: An improved pairing process, though no details were provided. AirTag pairing is already...
macOS Tahoe 26 Thumb

Apple Releases macOS Tahoe 26.2 With Edge Light

Friday December 12, 2025 10:08 am PST by
Apple today released macOS Tahoe 26.2, the second major update to the macOS Tahoe operating system that came out in September. macOS Tahoe 26.2 comes five weeks after Apple released macOS Tahoe 26.1. Mac users can download the macOS Tahoe update by using the Software Update section of System Settings. macOS Tahoe 26.2 includes Edge Light, a feature that illuminates your face with soft...
iOS 26

15 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 26.2

Friday December 5, 2025 9:40 am PST by
Apple is about to release iOS 26.2, the second major point update for iPhones since iOS 26 was rolled out in September, and there are at least 15 notable changes and improvements worth checking out. We've rounded them up below. Apple is expected to roll out iOS 26.2 to compatible devices sometime between December 8 and December 16. When the update drops, you can check Apple's servers for the ...

Top Rated Comments

MacOG728893 Avatar
176 months ago
Does this get rid of Mission Control comments in 3,2,1...
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
CIA Avatar
176 months ago
Hopefully OS level integrated USB 3 support so us MacPro users can finally buy cheap plug and play USB3 PCIe cards without having to deal with drivers, updating drivers, troubleshooting drivers... etc.

Oh and TRIM support for 3rd party SSD's without jumping though hoops would be nice also.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
daneoni Avatar
176 months ago


- A much needed revamped Finder (HFS+ is wearing very thing, I recall Leopard beta's with ZFS+, shame SunSystems went down and IP et al is keeping such a needed system out of OS X)

- OpenGL Core support (4+ is lagging and needed)

- Lagging support for the professional industry that carried Apple through its rough times and gave them the R&D to venture into Finger-works and multi-touch iOS devices

- Multi-display support


Well we are in agreement on these points. For sure.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jlnr Avatar
176 months ago
I don't understand why Apple has excluded machines from upgrading to 10.8 at all. It seems to be a step up from 10.7 for absolutely everybody, unlike 10.7, which has removed some 10.6 features like iSync, Rosetta, server stuff.

Is there *anything* missing in 10.8 that 10.7 can do? Support for old-style FileVault maybe? Or is there anything in 10.8 that really requires more horsepower than 10.7? Even all the HiDPI stuff has been crammed into 10.7 by now.

I wish they'd just give everyone 10.8 so developers would only have to deal with 10.8 and maybe 10.6, but not 10.7.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
commander.data Avatar
176 months ago
It makes sense to release a final 10.7.5 in order to roll the new WWDC 2012 Macs into mainline Lion. It'll greatly simplify future security updates, iTunes updates, Java updates, etc. by not having to worry about a bunch of custom 10.7.4 builds.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
daneoni Avatar
176 months ago
Would there be any reason someone stays of from Mountain Lion and keep Lion?

I get people staying in Snow Leopard. But from Lion, I think things can only get better. Truly, I like the design and new features of Lion, but so far it has been far from being a stable release.
There's no built in RSS support in Mountain Lion. Also some systems simply can't run it. So yea there are reasons.

why don't they just call Mountain Lion 10.7.6 instead?
Because its not a point update.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)