Last year, roughly a month before Apple released OS X Mountain Lion, it extended its beta program to certain Apple Retail Store staff members. This year, the company appears to be doing something similar.
9to5Mac reports that retail store staff are again being invited to try the beta of OS X Mavericks.
You are invited to participate in the pre-release OS X Mavericks seed program. Participation, including submitting feedback, is completely voluntary and not an expectation of your job. If you accept, we will provide you with a pre-release version of OS X Mavericks to install and use. You will get to preview all of the exciting new features like iBooks, Maps, Calendar, Safari, iCloud Keychain, Multiple Displays, Notifications, Finder Tabs, Tags, and much more! You should use OS X Mavericks only your personal computer and on your personal time. Apple will provide you with ways to submit feedback on your experiences with OS X Mavericks, should you choose to do so. Apple also asks that you use future builds of OS X Mavericks as they are made available. The responses from prior seed programs have been overwhelmingly positive. Thank you to everyone who participated!The site also notes that Apple has provided prerelease versions of Mavericks to its AppleSeed beta testing group.
Before WWDC, a leak suggested that Apple was well into the development of OS X 10.9, with a build number of 13A451 appearing on a recent internal release. One possible implication of the high build number was that Apple was closer to a public release of Mavericks after its unveiling than with previous OS X beta releases.