New Snow Leopard build (10A286) seeded to developers

Apple has seeded a new build of its upcoming operating system, Snow Leopard, to developers of Apple software. The news is being reported by website World of Apple, and they have said that the new build features a new QuickTime, and a new Cocoa-based Finder. It's also interesting to note that Apple is further endorsing that developers try running the build in 64-bit, showing that they still strongly wish to make the switch to it.

Here are the, as World of Apple mentions, strangely short build notes:

New Content

This seed contains some major new changes in the following areas:

QuickTime Player:
The new QuickTime Player has a new minimal UI and is focused on playback.

Finder:
Finder includes a new Cocoa Desktop, Info Window and Contextual Menu

Safari:
Safari 4 beta is included in the seed as the default browser.

Known Issues

• Remote Installs over Airport may cause panics (A workaround is to install via Ethernet or DVD.)
• Booting from the install DVD can take a long time
• Some settings are not migrated from the previous system when upgrading, including file sharing, sharing name and energy saver settings.
• Finder issues: Icon previews will not appear on the Desktop, selecting Clean Up does not change icon placement on the Desktop. Sometimes the Finder and Desktop will stop responding to input. A workaround is to restart Finder.
• iTunes will sometimes lock up when an iPhone is connected. A workaround is to rename or delete ~/Library/Lockdown)
• Microsoft Office 2004 applications can hang when using the File->Open menu. A workaround is to open the file by opening it in Finder.)
• On newer MacBook Pros, the screen's backlight will not come on when booting into the installer if the brightness is set below 6.
• Hibernation is not working on machines with Nvidia graphics cards and will result in a frozen machine.
• The Time Machine UI cannot be activated in Finder and Mail in some cases.
• The linker creates a bad image when the minimum OS target is set to Mac OS X 10.5 and weak external symbols are used. (A workaround is to set Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.6 as the minimum OS target.)
• Xcode often crashes when navigating in documentation using the navigation buttons.
• We do not recommended installing this seed on the Nehalem Mac Pros.

There are some quite nasty issues listed there, but that is the nature of pre-release software, and it's good to see a new QuickTime and a newly revamped Finder. Apple is making good progress on Snow Leopard, which is expected to be released later this year, so keep an eye out.