Hi all!
Just a heads up for those new to the beta cycle or those who might need a refresher.
Beta software is not complete; it is expected to have bugs which need to be reported. The difference here, for us, is that we rely more heavily on our devices than sighted peers. I strongly advise you not to install it on a primary device. I, for example, never put beta software on my iPhone. Yes, people will say they aren't having any issues, it's stable, etc... All until it's not.
I know most of you are wise people, know the risks, but what it would be nice to avoid is a series of posts complaining that beta software doesn't work correctly. We should certainly compare notes, but asking for solutions to issues on unreleased software isn't a good use of anyone's time.
Only install beta software if:
1. It's not your primary device.
2. You know how to get back to the current public release, including taking backups, restoring, etc.
It, as always, is more difficult for us if things fail, and it's more difficult to get ourselves back to a working system.
Please don't get yourself in a pickle.
Comments
Re: Oliver:
How about the fact that anyone has a choice to respond and propose a solution if asked for. I believe that people know the risks associated with unreleased software. However, to suggest that people who ask for solutions on such software are not using time correctly is so wrong in many ways.
If you have no solution to a question or problem, it's ok, but to prevent those experiencing problems to ask in the name of not using anyone's time in a good manner is not ok at all.
The truth is, we won't haveā¦
The truth is, we won't have a solution. The bug tracking on here is to say, I'm experiencing the same issue, here's what I've sent to feedback, here's the case number.
Answering questions on the public release, IOS 18.5/18.6, for example, makes sense however, trouble shooting issues with unreleased software is going to be beyond all of us.
Of course, you can install it, get into a pickle, put the question out there, but I'm not sure you're going to get very many good solutions. Hence the warning.
I have betas on my only devices
hello ,
to say on here never install betas on a primary device is the decision of indaviduals. for new to beta testing, I concur. but for me, have been beta testing macOS since 2009, watchOS since 2022, tvOS since 2024, and iOS since 2011, I relish bugs. personally for me, I do not care if data is lost. I can have backups in iCloud, and things are peachey. even if I choose not to, which iCloud storage is $1.29 for 50 GB in Canada, all I own is Apple licensed media, and family pictures on Whatsapp, which are on servers, I have nothing to worry about. after all, putting betas on your only devices, in my case, is good, as I find more bugs and report them. I reported a bug with tvOS 26, but there is no thread on the site for the beta. I will make one. I as well have the beta opn my Apple Watch. now, I am fully ;;u aware of the risks of installing watchOS betas, and how you can't downgrade yourself and sending a watch to Apple to have it downgraded, and once a beta's on, it's not compatible with stable iOS, but I am enthusiastic about the risks. . again, data is easily recoverable in my usecase. so putting betas on watchOS and tvOS is whiskey,, but I I have no need to restore tvOS or iOS, so it all is grea. I am on the developer beta, which is statistically, more unstable, and have been 2016, when developer betas were paid, through membership in the Apple Developer program. when they made betas free for registered developers, I promptly cancel my membership. I only paid for beta testing. berfore that, I was on public betas. I beta tested way back when OS X Mavericks was current, and I found out about the then brand new public beeta program on this site, OS X 10.9.3. I love apple made the developer betas free, aslong live bugs! beta testing can be both rewording and frustrating , that is personally a passion of mine!
I completely agree with Daniel Angus MacDonald
We need more blind testers, not fewer. I'll also say there is an advantage to being a tester:
list of 3 items
1. You get to help shape the software.
2. If there is an issue that affects VoiceOver users, you can report it and help improve the product.
3. You also get the fix ahead of others.
list end
I agree with Daniel Angus MacDonald that by having it on your main device, you catch more bugs. Stable releases have had bugs. Do we say don't upgrade?
Rarely. My point is any software can and will have bugs. You just might find more in a beta.
not asking for solutions is wrong!
That is what we all are here for! so keep asking for those solutions!!!
Warranty
One of the more realistic problems people can possibly find themselves in is getting their devices hard bricked by unstable firmware that is not covered by warranty, which any device that doesn't have a service port, like Apple Watch, Apple TV (the models with Ethernet might be recoverable but I'm not sure), all the Beats-branded hardware, the Magic peripherals, Apple Pencil, and the HomePod, are likely to fall in this category, plus many of these devices are automatically updated, so it's not even intuitive to make an informed guess about which devices are potentially at risk. Furthermore since recovering an Apple device from a soft-bricked state usually requires a working Mac, making sure that people are fully aware of the potential problems that they might be getting themselves into by messing with beta software is perfectly reasonable in my opinion.
On the more theoretical realm, there's also a slim chance that firmware problems might cause damage to people's devices or property, so good luck collecting any kind of meaningful compensation for collateral damage from Apple after being advised about those risks and accepting the disclaimer of liability in their Beta Software Program Agreement that I'm also quoting below. If a battery-powered device running beta software explodes or catches up on fire, the simple facts that the software is clearly advertised as unstable coupled with the liability disclaimer are enough for the burden of proof not falling on Apple by default, so if a house burns down and people die or get injured due to a fire ignited by an iPhone under these conditions, it will be on claimants to extract any kind of useful evidence from the charred iPhone to prove that the beta software couldn't possibly cause a fire just to have a chance of legally challenging Apple.
As for iCloud Drive, it has its own fair share of historical synchronization issues that ultimately make it an unreliable storage service. I have the 200GB plan from my Family Apple One subscription that I barely use precisely because I don't trust Apple services when it comes to just working and doing the right thing. Even Time Machine is unreliable, since it can silently fail to make backups for two weeks, and to my knowledge this is not configurable. The simple fact that both these services are hard to mount and diagnose problems from Terminal is a huge red flag to me, especially since there's absolutely no technical reason for this to be the case. Furthermore, since logging in to an Apple Account from a beta system is enough to access iCloud Drive, there's also a slight chance of a bug in that software causing data loss on iCloud too, so even if iCloud Drive didn't have any issues, it would still not be a reliable backup option.
As for myself, I already pay a premium for Apple hardware and services, so and in addition to Apple's stance of not really caring that I've mentioned many times in the past, I don't find it even the slightest bit reasonable to expose myself to any of the risks that I mentioned above regardless of how slim the chances of any of what I said happening actually are. As the original poster mentioned, this is a case in which everything is fine until it isn't, and there are many things in life that can neither be replaced or even properly compensated for, so my personal stance, as a professional developer strongly dependent on Apple's development licenses and with full unrestricted access to this kind of software, is to not participate in these beta programs regardless unless there's a very good reason to actually do so, and therefore while I don't condemn others for making different choices, I also reserve to myself the freedom to alert everyone to the risks involved.
The following is a quote of the aforementioned liability disclaimer taken from the Apple Beta Software Program Agreement:
An informed choice is theā¦
An informed choice is the best we can do. Now, people are informed.
People can and should choose for themselves.
Re: Denis's encouragement to join the beta
Dennis, though I understand your reasoning, encouraging people to install beta software on main devices is not a good idea. Those who know the risks, fine, but there are a wide range of people on here who may find a vital piece of accessibility equipment unusable. You may have a lifestyle, accessibility skills and technical know-how to restore functionality and avoid issues when out of the home, not everyone does.
My view is, if you're concerned about betas being unstable, simply wait. Yes, we do want lots of people to beta test, of course we do, but I'd prefer people to be safe.
Though it's not a main device, iPad OS 26 beta 4 has been causing some big issues on some iPads... Not all, but if that's the device you use for work (not sure why you would), you've got another hour, if you're near a computer, where you have to restore it.
In short: Install beta at your own risk, if it goes wrong, if there is weird behaviour, the amount of support this community can provide is limited.
These are very unlikely to happen
These are very remote possibilities. To try and scare people in not joining betas is wrong!
Re: These are very unlikely to happen
Hi Dennis,
If I am not mistaken, you have one of the new iPhone 16 E models, correct? I believe you only picked this up a few months back, when they first released. And like most of us do with a new device, you likely have some kind of insurance and/or extended warranty on it.
What would you do, if you installed a version of iOS beta software on that device, only to have it brick on you? What if you cannot fix it yourself, nor anyone in your immediate circle of friends, family, etc.? what would you do when, upon taking your device to your Cellular carrier or an Apple Store, they told you that they could fix it, but it was not covered by your insurance and/or warranty, and you had to pay a significant amount for the fix?
Furthermore, what happens if you install a faulty beta software, that causes physical damage to the hardware of your device? More often than not in that situation, your device needs to be replaced.
Again, what happens when it's not covered by warranty or insurance?
No one is telling you, nor anybody else, not to beta test. The OP is just giving a friendly warning about the consequences of doing so. Beta testing, with any software and any hardware, is always a, "do at your own risk", situation. yes, more blind beta testers would be welcome, but don't try and convince people that the chances of their devices being damaged or ruined is inconsequential. That road leads to foolishness and frustration.
Re: These are very unlikely to happen
Dennis, I find your optimism a bit hard to share. We've already seen reports of iOS 26 betas causing serious issues ā crashes, disabled voices, VoiceOver going silent, and more. So when you say these problems are very unlikely, I think it's important to clarify that they absolutely can happen. Speaking as someone with experience testing across platforms, I personally wouldnāt risk installing the iOS 26 beta on my primary device ā in my case, a 16 Pro Max. Just something to consider for those who rely heavily on accessibility.
Risk benefit balance
As unlikely as the scenarios that I mentioned might be, they can be potentially devastating if they happen to manifest at their fullest potential. Therefore, and given that the reward for participating in a beta program is a slight chance of getting a bug fixed, I still don't think it's reasonable for anyone to expose themselves to the risks. I can understand the excitement about experiencing the development process of new technology, and have nothing against that, but I don't think that anyone who doesn't care about that should be led to feeling that participating is a social obligation, especially since we're talking about a company that has more than enough resources to hire people specifically for this purpose if they actually consider it important.
Still regarding the scenarios that I mentioned, widespread cases of supposedly stable firmware updates soft-bricking Macs and hard-bricking HomePods aren't even that uncommon historically speaking. Therefore and although in those cases Apple had to compensate their customers because we're talking about production software, the simple fact that these things have happened with software that the company considered production ready should serve as a reminder that the chance of something like this happening in a beta is very real, with the aforementioned consequences of using software clearly marked as experimental and accepting their disclaimer of liability. I myself have experienced a swollen iPhone battery that I had promptly replaced, and a family member had its Mac soft-bricked overnight by an automatic software update during college exam season, with no experimental software being involved in either case.
I was actually among the legion of developers who tested and tried to warn Apple about how broken Apple Maps was during the iOS 6 beta still during my sighted days, but in their traditional arrogance, they decided to not care and ship that train wreck of a service to production anyway, ultimately leading to Scott Forstall, a historical executive deeply rooted into Steve Jobs own career, getting publicly scapegoated and fired over the quality of the service and refusal to sign a public apology letter. Since then I've had numerous interactions with alleged Apple engineers that led me to conclude that public feedback isn't of much interest to them, and that the only reason why they ended up creating a free tier in the developer program was because they realized that they could capitalize on the free publicity from public interest in their upcoming technologies with little to no liability.
Make no mistake, the beta programs from Apple are like a reverse lottery where contestants put their lives on the line for the slight chance of getting a bug fixed or influencing a development decision. Cook's Apple is greedy to the bone and only really cares about milking the cow as much as possible to please stock holders, so while Jobs was far from perfect, at least he had a vision and was willing to take risks and make compromises with that vision in mind, sometimes even betting the whole company in the process.
Re: Risk benefit balance
@JoĆ£o Santos, youāve articulated a lot of valid concerns, especially about the risks and Appleās historic track record. I just want to add that in the case of iOS 26, the excitement over testing the beta feels even less justified than usual. Despite the radically different naming, iOS 26 doesn't actually introduce any groundbreaking new technologies or enhancements that would spark genuine curiosity, especially for those of us in the accessibility community.
Thereās no major shift in how VoiceOver works, no new accessibility APIs, and no revolutionary UI or performance upgrades that would make risking a main device seem worthwhile. Yes, maybe Braille-oriented enhancements are worthwhile, but you should be really into Braille to appreciate them. So while I understand the appeal of being part of a development cycle, this year, even that thrill seems underwhelming.
iPad 9 and public beta
Put it in my iPad 9. VO does not work, sighted person help and without VO it works but some apps crash the device and put it on choices, restart, recovery or cancel. Without VO is OK, for now I will wait for the next beta to upload and see if VO comes. I would never put it on my iPhone 16 pro max until letter A. I took the chance and lost. Sent an email to accessibility to apple for what is worth. Do not mind much. It was my choice. Long live the bad apple.
As someone who installed the beta, I agree.
I didn't update my ICloud before installing the beta and whilst the beta works now, voiceover stopped talking, ringtones didn't work,, and so on. So it is advisable not to instal it unless you update your ICloud each time.
reiterating an important point
My two cents. Please don't come for me
Every time this argument about beta testing comes up, itās the same story: āWell, persons donāt have a reason not to test. They only have one device? Thatās not a valid excuse.ā Except, yesāit is a valid reason. Especially for us. I rely on my phone in a way that most sighted people donāt. If something goes wrongāif the device becomes unusable during beta testingāitās not an inconvenience, itās a full-blown accessibility issue. I donāt have anyone physically around me who knows how to troubleshoot, and I donāt always have access to a second device or a computer. So what happens then?
Itās as if beta testing is only meant for people who can afford to take that riskāand frankly, that leaves out a huge portion of us, especially those outside the U.S. What happens when you live in a country with no Apple Store, no accessible Apple Support system to run to, and no warranty or coverage? Thatās the reality for a lot of people. Wait, can you even beta test out of the US? Like, how does that work exactly?
And itās not only about being blind. Some people need their devices for medical reasonsālike connecting to a glucose monitor or managing blood pressure, or managing a smart baby monitor for their child. There are real, legitimate reasons why they would choose not to install a beta on their only device. I donāt think enough people are paying attention to the wording used in the original post either. Yes, it says, āDo not install the beta on your main device.ā But we need to understand: even if they tell us not to install it, theyāre not actually stopping us. They live miles awayātheyāre not going to pop out of your closet and stop your hand. So what then? Are we now supposed to ask the original poster to revise it to say, āIt is not advisable to install the beta on your primary deviceā? Will that fix the issue? Probably not. And noātheyāre not being mean or dismissive by saying testers shouldnāt come and ask questions. The truth is, sometimes the beta doesnāt have a fix yet. If youāre running into a problem and no one else is experiencing it, itās not that we donāt want to helpāitās that we canāt . If thereās no workaround, thereās no workaround. It's not the message. It's the wording of the message. The problem is, it's hard to determine what was a problem before the beta, and what was a problem after you install the beta. If you ask a question, sometimes, you might get a solution that works, and other times? You don't, because this is a problem that definitely needs to be fixed on their end from the beta. Ten individuals could be having the same, or similar issues, and your device is the only one that ends up brakeing beyond repair. Cats and dogs don't have the same luck. This isnāt an issue we need to fight about. It helps absolutely no one. Just my two cents. I hope everyoneās doing okay and wish you all the best, whatever you choose to do or not do regarding beta installs.
By the wayāwasnāt there that project last year involving Matthew Whitaker? You know, that musician, the one who was on the Ellen show? I think he mentioned something about working with Apple to make the Mac more accessible. He even posted a form, and a lot of blind users signed up. I know because I was watching that thread closely, but then⦠silence. Did anything ever come out of that? Honestly, itās disappointing. I remember years ago, when people were reporting issues with VoiceOver on macOS, even before I made an account on this site. Iād browse and see detailed posts, email exchanges with Apple, step-by-step bug reports. Some of those users practically wrote QA test cases. And yet, to this day? The same issues persist. No concrete fixes. No communication. No closure.
And the worst part? Any time a person speaks up about Apple not fixing a problem, the response is always the same: āWell, maybe you didnāt report it properly.ā Or, āYou gave them attitude when reporting.ā Or my personal favorite, āYou werenāt persistent enough.ā Like, seriously? I donāt own a Mac, but Iāve spent years, on the iPhone, sending in screen recordings, detailed emails, testing every update, reporting every bug I could reproduceāand nothing changed. But when I say that, the response is basically, āWell, you mustāve done it wrong.ā No. Sometimes you do everything right, for the right reasons, with the right attitudeāand you still get nowhere. Itās exhausting. Itās demoralizing. And it makes it hard to keep showing up and contributing when the only thing you get in return is blame.
Re: Don't waste our time.
Here's my problem with "don't post asking for solutions with a beta".
Let's talk about the scrub gesture. Pretty much everything I've ever seen here about it says to "move your two fingers back and forth in a Z shape". I tried that. It didn't work for me. I ended up doing a sort of half circle and pulling downward at the end, so think of a half circle with a straight line down from one end.
But then I decided to check out the Voiceover tutorial the other week, finally, just to see what it's like. That says to move two fingers back and forth on the screen. That works, pretty consistently. So now I just put two fingers on the screen and swipe them left and right and left, and get the scrub gesture to work wherever it will, there are a couple of apps where it doesn't, 3rd party ones. So essentially I'm doing a two-finger swipe right, i.e. horizontally across the screen, just adding a couple more left and right.
Now let's suppose I could get the IMO unnecessarily complicated Z gesture to work sometimes, but I installed a beta, and suddenly, it doesn't work, or rarely works. Maybe this is the beta. Or maybe, like I found by checking out the tutorial, there's just a way easier way to do it that gives you more consistency, again IMO. I changed my rotor gestures to two-finger swipe left and right for precisely this reason, sometimes I could get the standard gesture to work, sometimes I couldn't.
Yes, this is me, and not the phone. But my point is, it's entirely possible that there are different ways to do things that I don't know about, and maybe they just so happen to be an issue, coincidentally, when I've installed a beta. Telling me not to bother everybody with my dumb beta questions because you can't help and we shouldn't expect you to anyway because it's a beta, duh!, isn't particularly helpful or welcoming.
Sticking with my hypothetical, if a gesture seems to work less well after a beta, that's probably not a bug from the beta that I should report, it's just me having more trouble with the gesture for whatever reason. You don't have to look hard for threads where people post about problem behavior X, assume it's a bug somebody needs to report immediately, and then it turns out there's some way to do it they're just missing, and it's not a bug at all.
There's my two cents. Feel free to come at me. I think I have a perfectly defensible point.
P.S.
Also IMO, I think it would have been a way better post without the "quit bothering us" addendum. It kind of makes it feel like you're warning people less because a beta might cause problems, and more like you're sick of people forever asking questions because they installed a beta and they're having issues, and you'd wish they'd just stop it.
To be clear, I think it's a good point, and as somebody who uses a medical device with the phone, Winter Roses brings up a great point. So there are absolutely a boatload of great reasons to carefully consider before installing beta software. But again, big difference between "consider if you use a medical device and your phone stops working", and "please quit bothering us with all these questions"!
finally someone who agrees with me!
Dennis,
you very much echo my sentament! for years, I tried to encourage beta testing by blind testers. it was always the same response. scared of bugs. as long as you know what you're doing, you are fine. the bug with VoiceOver not talking ... it effected me in beta 1. but now, at least for me, it's fixt. my contact form on the site is set so only editorial team can email me only, but reading your positivity inspires me to change it back to anyone! I would love to connect off site, and talk about betas of Apple stuff. now, to figure out what changes they made to the contact form. long live bugs!,
Thots
Hi
Considering for the past few years apples stable software has felt like a beta at best i install the betaās to see whatās new and report feedback hoping maby some day it will be fixed
I am seariously thinking about ditching apple and getting a samsung tablet, does Samsung have there own bugs? Of corse they do, no system is bug free but the bugs that they have are a lot easier to work around
Oh and apple clearly doesnāt listen to feedback, they just do a vary good job making people think they do and you all fell for it
contacting members
You should be able to click about and then contact.
My experience
I'm unfortunately younger than most people here and less cynical and too positive about apple than I should probably be :)
I do beta testing on most of my devices, because I have enough free time, passion, just this geek mindset of testing not the new software but the potential interesting new accessibility enhancements (good or bad) that come with that software.
I willfully, and knowing the risks, installed the early beta of ios 18 on my main (and only) iphone, because 18 was a nice release for us overall for braille, because frankly it was summer time and between college break I had the feeling of doing something productive, or at least more productive. I did so with the apple watch, and failed :) to update my airpods to the beta because of a bug that's probably still there when we enable developer mode on iphone with xcode open on a free account, or something like that. Of course my main focus was and is always the mac. From my experience, for my very specific use case, I've seen enough patches on sequoia especially to keep doing that, on a secondary volume (better than iphone but still not a guarantee to avoid potential damages).
I do that because I can, I want, and have enough free time and mental strength to voluntarily do something for a trillion dollars company I could, and rightfully should, be paid for. But this is a personal choice, and encouraging others to do that by implied gilt feeling feels just very, very wrong to me. With blindness alone (all spectrum) we have so many challenges on top of general life, and asking people to jump on an unstable terrain, especially if they are not real dev / geek in their very personality, is wrong IMO. It always should be a personal choice, you do it whenever you want and stop because it's your right, and nobody should even imply anything else.
Free beta testing seems to me yet another example of greedy, late stage capitalism, and is not really something that should be considered as normal.
As said above, if apple really cared deeply about accessibility, (even if they do more than some others because of their own interest) they could, very easily hire more people, from different language backgrounds, and fix things quickly. The fact that they rather let people do the testing for free and only ocasionally fix 1 bug to leave 99 others unseen speaks more about their real priorities and culture than any marketing or good will discourse could. Whether or not this is a good thing, this is the current state, and I have chosen, on my own terms, to participate in this beta program. Nobody else should feel obliged to do so, especially if it's related to the fewer demographic of disability. It should be because it's what you want to do. And when you don't want, you can and must stop.
This is true because it's a company with more than enough resources. Things are just slightly different for open source softwares and especially linux desktops.
We have enough problems already, why actively look for more?
I think itās a lot less complicatedā¦
as someone who has beta tested every year since iOS 9, I think the question to beta or not to beta is a simple one.
it takes three easy questions to arrive at your answerā¦
A: can you get your device up and running on the latest public firmware within an hour if something goes wrong? As in, Do you understand how to use DFU/Recovery mode and IPSWs comfortably, as if it were the back of your hand? If yes, congratulations. You have moved on to the next question. If not, stay away, unless you just like living on the edge, in which case follow alongā¦
B: do you have any planned events coming up within the three months of beta testing where your phone can absolutely not fail you? An international vacation, a work event, anything? if so, goodbye. No beta for you.
C: do you actually want to run a beta on your phone? Are you comfortable with the fact that it might be a little bit more quirky than usual for a couple weeks?
personally, I fall into all of these criteria. I can absolutely get my OS ā26 beta devices back on the public release in a snap, I have a boring life where very little happens and my phone not working for short periods is just an annoyance instead of a danger, and I like beta testing because, after all, itās fun. and in some cases, very helpful to everyone else. I donāt know what the guy above me was going on and on about capitalism and some such and what not, but at the end of the day, no matter how big of a company Apple may be, there are at least 1 million users of the public beta program and likely only hundreds, maybe low thousands of Apple employees specifically working on these updates. Iād rather they allow public beta testing than not, because the bigger the Feedback pool, the more bugs are likely to be found. after all, no matter how much testing is done in labs and in internal tests, there is absolutely no way to predict how something will be once itās in the real world.
letās not forget the iPhone 4 antenna issue, one of the biggest reasons that happened at all was because of a lack of external testing outside of Apple.
I will say that one thing that does add an extra layer of security is the public beta program. The builds that are released to the public beta program are identical to the builds released to the developer beta program, however, they come out after a time window (usually 24-48 hours but it has been up to a week before) specifically so that show stopping bugs like bricked devices or VoiceOver being completely cooked are a lot less likely to slip through the cracks or end up on too many devices. Anyone who wants to beta test but is stopped by the threat of show stopping bugs like that, the public beta program is absolutely a much safer channel to go through. The updates also usually move quite a bit slower, the first public beta of iOS 26 only came out this week, after 4 different builds for developer betas.
The bug with VoiceOver premium voices not working was in Dev Beta 1, the public beta channel never saw that version.
Maybe read the thread before replying?
Maybe if you actually read what was said before commenting you'd understand that the comment above yours was replying in the context of my comments earlier in the thread, which I strongly recommend reading as well because all your arguments have already been tackled.
The so-called iPhone 4 "antennagate" snafu was a hardware problem, which nobody would have been able to catch outside Apple since iOS 4 itself came out 3 days before the hardware where it manifested. This still happened during my sighted days, and if I recall correctly from actually comparing the schematics of the iPhone 4 with those of the iPhone 4S that came out over a year later and no longer suffered from that problem, the biggest relevant difference was that the iPhone 4S also had a smaller antenna extending upwards, my thought at the time was that it might have resulted from limitations imposed by contemporary communication hardware regulations coupled with Apple's choice to point the single antenna of that device downwards,, so although I'm pretty sure that it was a hardware problem, I'm just speculating about the possible causes.
Even if the iPhone 4 antennagate was a valid example of a software problem that could be caught during a beta, it has already been countered by my own example in which many developers including myself tried to warn Apple about the problems in Apple Maps during the iOS 6 beta to no avail, which is a perfect demonstration of how much they actually value public feedback, and this wasn't even a niche accessibility problem.
Editing because I forgot to set the format to Markdown before posting.