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Apple will fight iOS bugs with first-ever iOS Public Betas: 8.3 in March, 9 in summer

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In an effort to eliminate bugs from upcoming iOS versions ahead of their general releases, Apple plans to launch the first-ever public beta program for the iOS operating system, according to multiple people briefed on the plans. Following the successful launch of the OS X Public Beta program with OS X Yosemite last year, Apple intends to release the upcoming iOS 8.3 as a public beta via the company’s existing AppleSeed program in mid-March, according to the sources. This release will match the third iOS 8.3 beta for developers, which is planned for release the same week. Apple then expects to debut iOS 9 at its June Worldwide Developer Conference, with a public beta release during the summer, and final release in the fall…

Ahead of the October 2014 launch of OS X Yosemite, Apple released the new Mac OS as a beta to the first one million people who registered with interest. Apple has said that it will soon provide these users with early looks at OS X updates such as the upcoming 10.10.3 with the new iCloud-based Photos application. In order to maintain a higher level of exclusivity, the public beta program for iOS will apparently be limited to 100,000 people, the sources say. Apple began seeding a select group of retail employees with iOS betas for minor releases in January. In the hands of developers since last year, iOS 8.2 will not enter public beta.

Codenamed Stowe, iOS 8.3 was first seeded to developers in early February with several enhancements. The updated software includes support for Wireless CarPlay, an upgraded Emoji keyboard, an enhanced voice for Siri, and simpler login for Google services. A second 8.3 beta is expected next week. iOS 9, codenamed Monarch, will include fixes and performance enhancements as headline features. Apple is also working on iOS 8.4, codenamed Copper, that bundles Apple’s all new streaming music service. Like the early iOS 8 developers builds, the public betas will include a dedicated app that allows users to report bugs to Apple.

The main goal of the iOS beta program will be a more reliable and widely tested operating system by the time of the wider consumer launch, as Apple has come under fire for lack of quality control in iOS 8. Launching public beta versions of iOS will also reduce the demand for unauthorized sales of beta downloads from developer accounts, which enabled some consumers to test-drive future iOS features. Apple Vice President of iPhone and iOS Marketing Greg Joswiak publicly shared his concern regarding these blackmarket businesses, saying that Apple planned to fight those in the future.

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Comments

  1. Jesus. Opening can of warms there…

    • Thug Poet (@JDMRoy) - 9 years ago

      Where can one get a can of warms? Its pretty cold over in the East coast.

    • johnmfoley (@johnmfoley) - 9 years ago

      Agree. A nice can of warm feelings. This is a good thing!

      Sounds like it’s the AppleSeed program not everyone. So the testers should be well aware of the risks they take with beta software. And it’s Apple’s job to put enough plain language warnings explaining the circumstances too. Also, it likely won’t be the earliest betas which will be limited to developers still, but the more refined builds.

      If this helps cut down on gray market betas and provide a more stable final release then it’s only a benefit for end users. Windows has been doing this for years. I’m surprised at the negative reactions…

  2. Chris Cooper - 9 years ago

    …yeah…this is going to be bad…

    • OneOkami (@OneOkami) - 9 years ago

      As long as Apple makes it quite clear that you should not be running beta software on production hardware unless you completely understand the risks then I don’t see a problem with this. People will only have themselves to blame if they foolishly ignore such a warning and end up regretting it.

      If more people voluntarily want to step up and be guinea pigs, let ’em go for it. Theoretically it should only make release builds even more stable if anything.

    • How? The whole point of betas is to sort out bugs. Users will likely have to agree to a set of terms that dictates that Apple isn’t responsible for performance or data loss and the like.

    • Considering that 8.3 won’t be a full “new” version, but fixes to the current version, i don’t see many issues happening. Now, if it were the jump to 7 from 6, then yeah.

  3. Taste_of_Apple - 9 years ago

    Wow. Big move. Curious to see how this works out.

  4. Odys (@twittester10) - 9 years ago

    Not a bad idea – the truth is with the complexity of iOS it becomes harder and harder to simulate all possible bug scenarios once its in the wild. They probably looked at how Yosemite public beta worked and were satisfied with the outcomes.

  5. Joefrey Kibuule - 9 years ago

    You can’t downgrade iOS to a previous version as of yet, so this will not be pretty.

    • rogifan - 9 years ago

      If they do this won’t they have to allow downgrades?

    • philboogie - 9 years ago

      Sure you can, they leave a window open for a few days. With iOS8 the last day was on a Saturday you could downgrade.

      • It’ll be more than just a few days. If they have a public release of 8.3, you’d still be able to go back to 8.1.3 or 8.2 (whichever is released) until 8.3 is official.

    • You can load old versions of iOS on a device; it’s more complicated than most users would expect.

    • Lloyd McFarlin - 9 years ago

      I’ve always been able to downgrade after installing dev betas. I imagine it would work the same way.

    • you can downgrade from a Beta anytime by doing a recovery restore.

    • Randy March - 9 years ago

      You can always (mostly) downgrade to the most recent public release. AFAIK, to revert a beta update, just restore the device in iTunes. ;-)

      Other kinds of downgrades are not possible with normal means because Apple stop providing authorising new installations of deprecated versions, namely any version that is not the current one. This is to prevent abuse (data theft from a stolen device …) by downgrading a device to a version with security holes.

  6. btsuyuki1 - 9 years ago

    I’m forecasting a lot of broken apps and a lot of complaining testers. It’s not like Mac OS X where you can run it in a virtual machine if you have to.

  7. That probably means that they are feeling confident enough with their next releases if they are willing to expand the testing audience (isn’t there around 1m developers?)

    I’m sure this is the end of the recent bugginess we’ve seen from them. You can trip up only so many times and they’re good at not repeating mistakes.

  8. Odys (@twittester10) - 9 years ago

    One thing for certain – we are watching completely different Apple evolve

    • seanv939 - 9 years ago

      Not that I disagree, but why does this indicate that? Apple has done public betas (on and off) for OS X since 2000. This is just a first for iOS.

    • o0smoothies0o - 9 years ago

      Yeah because Steve would have never done this? Come back here and post when you have empirical evidence to suggest Steve would have never done this. Thanks.

  9. brswllc - 9 years ago

    Won’t do much good. I reported a bunch of problems with iOS 8 during its developer beta that still are not fixed. Most of which are really obvious and pervasive.

    • philboogie - 9 years ago

      I also don’t understand all the obvious bugs. Too many to mention, and too obvious to report. There must be some QA folks needed at the Apple Watch dept. or something.

    • jrox16 - 9 years ago

      Apple fixes bugs based on a priority system. So even if they are obvious and pervasive, it doesn’t mean they will get fixed if Apple deems they are of lower priority to other bugs.

    • o0smoothies0o - 9 years ago

      They prioritize things. If 100,000 people post a bug, they’ll fix it. If 1% of users are affected by a bug, it’s not high on the list. If you say they’re pervasive, they might be, but you’d have to have evidence to suggest that.

  10. philboogie - 9 years ago

    8.3 …takes you back, doesn’t it?

  11. James Alexander - 9 years ago

    Awesome. Now I dont have to use one of my friends dev accounts. Nothing to be scared about all I have never had that big of an issue with any of the beta’s. My phone has always worked except a few games now and then.

  12. Jonny - 9 years ago

    I’m hoping they do something with preventing/qualifying any app reviews written by people who are posting them from a beta version of the OS

  13. I wouldn’t call the beta for Yosemite a success in terms of finding bugs. I have been irate about my scheduled reboots not working ever since I switched to Yosemite. My MacBook Pro does reboot, but after a certain time, it shuts down. That never used to happen before Yosemite.

  14. DonRSD - 9 years ago

    I’ll pass. Jailbreak > buggy iOS.

    • PMZanetti - 9 years ago

      That’s a laugh.

      More like Jailbreak = buggy iOS.

      • Domenic Pronesti - 9 years ago

        No you’re a laugh and a prude. Jailbreak your iDevice and tweak/add/adjust to it properly and responsibly. Do not install every theme under the sun and only install stuff that’s simple yet very useful. I’ve used jailbroken iDevices since they were available and can count on under one hand that amount of times i’ve experienced the unit to get buggy. And those times, i asked for it. It’s just like any other computer at that point – mess with an open system enough and install suspect software and it will become unstable.

  15. Greg Kaplan (@kaplag) - 9 years ago

    The bug report app for iOS 8 was janky as hell but was a great idea. It really helped make writing reports more doable. I could write them as bugs happen instead of writing a reminder to do it later. Hopefully this comes with a huge overhaul of the bug report system. The actual developer site is terrible.

    Any word on Maps? I mean I thought iOS 8 would bring public transit. I feel like they also had patents for indoor tracking… Apple watch would be perfect for that. Hell, i’d be happy if they just added a zoom out button so you don’t have to do the two handed pinch.

    • o0smoothies0o - 9 years ago

      What is a two handed pinch in ios?

      • Greg Kaplan (@kaplag) - 9 years ago

        Sorry, it’s just normal pinch to zoom, which requires two hands. One to hold and one to pinch.

        Google maps on android I think had had a zoom out button for a while. On ios google added double tap-drag up and down to zoom in and out. Personally I really like that but it’s not really intuitive. I think it’s less Apple’s style to rely only on a hidden gesture – though it’s better than nothing.

  16. quidpro (@quidpro) - 9 years ago

    Apple becomes more like Google with Siri, datacenters, betas, and automobiles, and more like Microsoft with a more unified OS experience across devices, while Google attempts to be more like Apple with hardware and design…and Microsoft strives to be both. They all just started from opposite corners of the room.

  17. mattymielesko - 9 years ago

    Lol, what’s even the point of having a public beta when people just glitch it onto their phones anyways..

  18. Scott Berry - 9 years ago

    I am glad to see this happen because there are some bugs with Voiceover that can be better addressed then.

  19. akibbe02 - 9 years ago

    Functional high ground my ass!

  20. if apple want to make people happy they have to remove the blocks which stop you from downgrading idevices. As ios evolves we are forced to upgrade and cant go back. Most of the time the upgrade is bad and makes our devices worse. Look at the iphone4. It was ok on ios5 a little worse on ios6 and unuseable on ios7. We need a way so we can downgrade to whatever ios we like that us good for us and our device. Till then android will always be the better choice as that does let you install whatwhatever firmware you like.

  21. djonesuk1978 - 9 years ago

    If this is becoming a thing, developers really need to file this bug report, to block App Store reviews from beta’s, before it’s too late http://lovingthetrolls.com/ios-public-beta-bug-report-before-its-too-late/

  22. well my wifi is slowing down after upgrading my iphone 5 to ios 8.1.3, thanks to apple i should’ve stay on 8.1.2 -,-“

  23. hijaszu - 9 years ago

    Well, maybe first, Apple Engineering needs to change its view on Bug Reporting. As Dev any bug reported was swiped under the rug. Doing that with higher number of bugs won’t solve anything differently than the current situation. (And by the way it is the same for the OS X bugs.)

  24. rob nienburg (@robogobo) - 9 years ago

    This is a good idea. Lord knows the bugs are plenty. But a better idea would be to hand the betas out to a registered group of power users to avoid newbs who will just muck up the reporting system with things they don’t understand.

  25. sammy90483 - 9 years ago

    Everything since iOS 7 has felt like a beta so this just codifies the practice.