OS X Mavericks Release Date Nears: Golden Master Seeded As OS X 10.10 Likely Getting Ready With iOS 7 Influence

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), on Thursday, seeded the Golden Master, or GM, build of the OS X 10.9 Mavericks, the next version of its Mac operating system, to registered developers ahead of an expected release date in late October.

The company's roll-out of the OS X 10.9 Mavericks GM build comes two weeks after the previous developer preview of the upcoming OS was released. Seeding the GM build essentially means that Apple has completed developing the OS X Mavericks, and that the same build will eventually be released to the public as the final version of the software.

The roll out of OS X 10.9 GM came hours after Apple announced a new OS X Mavericks build for the AppleSeed beta-testing program with a build number 13A598. AppleSeed members believed the new build to be the GM candidate, while some other sources claimed that the final version of the software would be several builds newer, 9to5Mac reported.

Alongside the OS X Mavericks GM version, Apple also released the Golden Master of Xcode 5.0.1, a pre-release version of the complete Xcode developer toolset for Mac, iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. The Xcode 5.0.1 is expected to be released together with Mavericks.

Meanwhile, Apple has also reportedly started working on the successor to OS X 10.9 Mavericks. Codenamed “Syrah,” the OS X 10.10 will incorporate a new design across the system, which will be akin to that of the iOS 7 and iCloud.com.

The 9to5Mac report said that Apple has already diverted the majority of its OS X and iOS resources to the development of OS X 10.10 and iOS 8, the company’s next two major operating systems, which are not expected to be announced until next summer.

The new OS X 10.9 Mavericks is claimed to have more than 200 new features, including Finder tags and tabs, multiple-displays tagging and a new version of Safari, to name a few.

While Apple highlighted many of them during the announcement at WWDC in June, the company has kept quiet about a few of the features. For instance, there is a new functionality that allows users to block phone numbers and Apple IDs in the FaceTime and Messages apps.

According to some earlier reports, Apple will be holding an event in late October to announce the release of OS X 10.9 Mavericks.