Apple Releases OS X Yosemite Public Beta

As promised, Apple released a public beta of OS X Yosemite on Thursday. The beta gives Mac users the opportunity to participate in the testing process, and get a taste of what's in store, before the new operating system officially ships this fall.

OS X Yosemite beta is in the wild

Apple confirmed earlier this week that the public beta would be available today, and that the intrepid souls ready to try it out would have the same version developers are currently using.

If you're planning on installing the beta, remember that it isn't ready for your mission-critical Macs just yet. There will be stability issues, some apps may not work, and some features will be missing or broken. If you have a second Mac, or at least an extra hard drive, install Yosemite there instead.

OS X Yosemite is compatible with these Mac models:

  • Mac mini: Early 2009 or newer
  • iMac: Mid 2007 or newer
  • Mac Pro: Early 2008 or newer
  • MacBook: Later 2008 Aluminum or early 2009 or newer
  • MacBook Air: Late 2008 or newer
  • MacBook Pro: Mid/Late 2007 or newer
  • Xserve: Early 2009

Apple introduced OS X Yosemite at its annual Worldwide Developer Conference this spring. The new Mac operating system will replace OS X Mavericks and includes a redesigned flatter looking interface, the ability to mark up documents without special apps, jump between devices to work on documents automatically, use the Mac as a speaker phone for the iPhone, and more.

OS X Yosemite is a free download available to users who signed up to participate in the public beta at Apple's website.

The beta is available as a download via Apple's Mac App Store, but you'll need to pay a visit to the OS X Yosemite public beta website first to check out the guidelines for installing the operating system and to get at the download link.