Seeds go out to workers' personal Macs

Apple is asking the Geniuses and Creatives in its retail staff to help test out OS X Mountain Lion, official email messages reveal. Notices are being sent out to individual workers, who are reportedly being given access to "near-final" seeds of the OS. People who opt in to the program are expected to test out the software on their own personal Macs, rather than any in-store computers.

Mountain Lion will launch in July, leaving little time for testing either by Apple or third-party developers. Seeding the software to retail clerks may be as much a way of preparing them to answer questions as testing, since otherwise they might know just as much as many of the shoppers buying Macs with Mountain Lion preloaded, or coming in to troubleshoot issues. Geniuses are expected to get formal Mountain Lion training sessions through work.

by MacNN Staff