Apple today seeded the sixth beta of OS X 10.10.4 to developers and public beta testers, approximately one week after releasing the fifth OS X 10.10.4 beta and nearly two months after releasing the first OS X 10.10.4 beta. OS X 10.10.4 has been in testing since mid-April, following the early April release of OS X 10.10.3, which included the new Photos for OS X app.
The new beta, build 14E36b, can downloaded through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store or through the Mac Developer Center.
OS X 10.10.3 brought several consumer-facing changes including the new Photos for OS X app, a redesigned emoji picker, and diversified emoji, but OS X 10.10.4 appears to be an under-the-hood update that brings performance enhancements and bug fixes.
Thus far, OS X 10.10.4 betas have not included outward facing design changes or feature additions, but the fourth beta introduced a significant behind-the-scenes update that may improve networking performance for users who have experienced issues with OS X Yosemite.
Discoveryd, a somewhat problematic networking process that has been linked to multiple bugs in OS X 10.10, was removed in favor of the older bug-free mDNSresponder.
It is not clear when Apple plans to release OS X 10.10.4 to the public, but the fact that we've now received six betas suggests we may be nearing the end of the beta testing period. It's possible we could see the public release of OS X 10.10.4 on June 30, the same day Apple plans to release iOS 8.4 with the new Music app and Apple Music service.
