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 have…
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 the…
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 — 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 wouldn’t risk installing the iOS 26 beta on my primary device — 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
@João Santos, you’ve articulated a lot of valid concerns, especially about the risks and Apple’s 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.
There’s 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.