Apple today seeded the fifth beta of OS X El Capitan to public beta testers, two weeks after seeding the fourth beta and a month after providing the first OS X El Capitan beta to the public for testing purposes.



Today's beta has a build number of 15A262c. It is not clear what is included in the fifth public beta as Apple has not released a new seventh OS X El Capitan developer beta, breaking its pattern of seeding betas to developers ahead of public testers. Past betas have featured no outward-facing changes, so it's likely this beta also focuses on internal performance improvements and bug fixes to get the operating system ready for its public launch.

Beta testers who have signed up for Apple's beta testing program and already have the public beta installed can update through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store.

OS X El Capitan is expected to be released to the public in the fall after the beta testing process is complete.

What's new in public beta 5:

Safari welcome screen - When opening Safari for the first time after installing the new public beta, users are seeing a new Safari welcome screen that highlights features in Safari like pinned sites, sharing links, and Smart Search for finding favorite websites.



About This Mac - The About This Mac screen has been updated with a new OS X El Capitan logo that is in color. Previously, the logo was gray.



Shake to locate mouse - In the System Preferences, there's a new Accessibility setting that lets the "Shake mouse pointer to locate" feature be disabled. This feature makes the mouse pointer bigger so it's easier to locate on the screen.



Update: It appears Apple may have pulled the beta update as many MacRumors readers are no longer able to download it.

