Apple
Apple’s next-generation operating systems take the next step toward release today, with Apple today releasing the first public betas of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS 15 Sequoia, tvOS 18, and HomePod Software 18. Enroll in Apple’s public beta program with your Apple ID and you can select which public beta versions you want through Software Update in the Settings app.
We covered the highlights of most of these releases when they were announced at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June, including expanded Home screen personalization in iOS and iPadOS, window tiling and iPhone mirroring in macOS, support for RCS text messaging across Apple platforms, and more. But Apple still isn’t ready to preview its Apple Intelligence AI features, which include text and image generation capabilities and a revamped Siri. Many of these features are still planned for “later this summer” and will presumably be available in some form in final releases this fall.
Most devices capable of running iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS 14 Sonoma can update to the new versions, including owners of the last few generations of Intel Macs. But a handful of older phones and tablets and the 2018 MacBook Air are being sidelined by the new releases. The watchOS 11 update also sidelines the Series 4 and Series 5 models, as well as the first-generation Apple Watch SE.
Apple also won't be releasing a public beta of VisionOS 2, the first major update to the Apple Vision Pro operating system. Users who want to try out new Vision Pro features will still need to sign up for the developer beta, at least for now.
Beta best practices
The first public betas are similar to, if not identical to, the third developer beta builds released last week. Apple typically releases new developer betas of next-gen OS releases every two weeks, so we can expect a fourth developer beta early next week, and a second nearly identical public beta build shortly thereafter.
Apple’s developer and public betas used to be more clearly separated, with a $99-per-year developer account paywall between general users and the earliest, roughest preview builds. That changed last year, when Apple made basic developer accounts (and access to beta software) free to anyone who wanted to sign up.
Apple still releases separate developer/public betas, but these days it’s more of a statement about who the betas are for than an actual technical barrier. Developer betas are rougher and visibly unfinished, but developers likely have the extra patience and technical skills needed to deal with those issues; public betas are still unfinished and unstable, but you can at least expect most basic functionality to work fine.
Regardless of how stable these betas are, the standard warnings apply: make a good backup of your device before updating in case you need to roll back to the older, more stable operating system, and don’t install beta software on mission-critical hardware that you absolutely need to work properly in your day-to-day life. For iPhones and iPads that connect to iCloud, connecting the devices to a PC or Mac and performing a local backup (preferably an encrypted one) can be a safer way to ensure you have a pre-upgrade backup on hand than relying on continuous iCloud backups.
