Beta Installation

[Ctrlos]

Despite this forum seemingly attracting everyone with buyers remorse about not just buying a MacBook Air, I for one still love the iPad. It makes a great travel companion on the road and the Pencil Continues to set it apart.

I was curious if anyone had installed the 18 beta yet and how stable it has proven to be?

 

[throAU]

I’ve had the beta installed for about 4 hours on an m1 ipad air.

So far i’ve only had one weird bug with moving the passwords app to the dock (left a duplicate image on the screen wiggling about) and maybe one app crash, but outside of that, and the math pad being a bit slow… so far so good.

Nothing i’ve run into that is a deal breaker so far, its obviously an early beta so expect quirks while its in beta.

If the ipad is your only/primary device though i’d suggest waiting. I’ve got multiple macs to use if the ipad craps out.

 

[throAU]

I will add - notes is QUITE laggy when using handwriting with the pencil.

It's doing a lot of AI stuff in the background to be sure (spelling correction of handwriting, math evaluation, etc.) but it's really annoying. Hopefully it is more perfomant in later betas and release, because as is - the M1 is nowhere near fast enough to do this.

People claiming the M4 is way overpowered for the iPads are perhaps not aware of what's coming, because the AI stuff, at least as is, is really pushing the limits of what the M1 can do.

 

[anakinfan8]

I installed it on my M2 iPad Pro. Not my main device. It's....definitely a beta. Home controls have been noticeably snappier. Math Notes is awesome, wish I had something like that in high school😆a few entertainment apps have frozen the whole device up to the point where I need to force restart. Honestly, I've been attempting to go back to 17 in the past few hours, thought I've been having a helluva time trying to downgrade. Every time I attempt to do so in Finder, I get an error.

 

[throAU]

Also, I've been having issues using Remote Desktop and my Logitech keyboard case.

The keyboard isn't working in that app. Which is a bummer. It works with the built in apple apps, however.

 

[OldRhodie]

Yes, I replaced my M1 iPad with the new M4 (11”). I’ve been curious about iPadOS 18, so have just reset my old iPad and set up as new, then installed the 18 beta. As already mentioned, there’s a bug when putting icons in the dock - switching off and back on seems to resolve the problem, though I do have an app duplicated in the dock and on the screen. (It’s the scribble app).

I’m sure there many other bugs lurking.

 

[OldRhodie]

Yes, I replaced my M1 iPad with the new M4 (11”). I’ve been curious about iPadOS 18, so have just reset my old iPad and set up as new, then installed the 18 beta. As already mentioned, there’s a bug when putting icons in the dock - switching off and back on seems to resolve the problem, though I do have an app duplicated in the dock and on the screen. (It’s the scribble app).

I’m sure there many other bugs lurking.

I should have said Freeform app.

 

[gwhizkids]

M2 iPad Pro here. No issues.

To those of you who are having issues, I would not be so quick to blame the M1 (or whatever processor you have). Remember: this is the first beta. Things do go wrong and the OS is not always optimized for speed or efficiency. Sometimes, you just need to do a restart and things improve. Other times you may need to reinstall the software, perhaps even using an IPSW file and the restore method. Sometimes you just have to wait for subsequent betas.

 

[richpjr]

I installed it on the first day. For most things it is stable, but the Photos app has bombed several times along with the Files app hanging when trying to copy a file from an external SSD (not that this didn't happen in iPadOS 17).

 

[citivolus]

I tried it out on my M2 11". Worked ok, a few things crashed, but not unexpected since it is a beta. However, what happened next was totally unexpected.

I wanted to revert back to 17.5.1 so I put the iPad in Recovery Mode and tried to Restore using Finder. It downloaded the os, unzipped it, and then threw up error 2006. Tried it multiple times with two Macs and different cables. Always the same result.

I then tried Apple Configurator and chose Restore. Same error and result. Tried Revive and got same error and result.

Had a call with Apple and they were stumped. Took it to the Apple Store today with a Genius Bar appt and they couldn't even communicate with the iPad.

Time of Death: 11:15am

I was pretty frustrated when they said that they need to send it to their depot for further analysis rather than swapping it with a replacement, even though it was still covered by the 1st year warranty. Spent a ton of time talking to the manager and AppleCare and all said the same thing.

So my ticket to trying out Beta 1 will cost me 3-5 business days of being out of pocket with my iPad used for work.

Never thought that "bricking" an Apple device can actually happen, but apparently it does.

 

[OldRhodie]

I’m gradually installing apps one by one. The bog standard stuff like Facebook, Messenger etc, and so far everything is working ok. I’m not going risk any banking or other secure apps though.

It’s somewhat underwhelming at the moment, imo, even taking into account I have it on an “old” M1 Pro. I think this first beta doesn’t have any of the new AI stuff that’s been trumpeted.

 

[anakinfan8]

I tried it out on my M2 11". Worked ok, a few things crashed, but not unexpected since it is a beta. However, what happened next was totally unexpected.

I wanted to revert back to 17.5.1 so I put the iPad in Recovery Mode and tried to Restore using Finder. It downloaded the os, unzipped it, and then threw up error 2006. Tried it multiple times with two Macs and different cables. Always the same result.

I then tried Apple Configurator and chose Restore. Same error and result. Tried Revive and got same error and result.

Had a call with Apple and they were stumped. Took it to the Apple Store today with a Genius Bar appt and they couldn't even communicate with the iPad.

Time of Death: 11:15am

I was pretty frustrated when they said that they need to send it to their depot for further analysis rather than swapping it with a replacement, even though it was still covered by the 1st year warranty. Spent a ton of time talking to the manager and AppleCare and all said the same thing.

So my ticket to trying out Beta 1 will cost me 3-5 business days of being out of pocket with my iPad used for work.

Never thought that "bricking" an Apple device can actually happen, but apparently it does.

Yeah, I got the same 2006 error myself. Tried a bunch of different USB-C cables, a different Mac, and even tried the Xcode 18 beta but no dice. I thought about trying Apple Configurator myself since my iPad was stuck in DFU mode, but I tried iMazing first to get it unstuck, and it worked. I also saw on Reddit that someone used Sequoia to restore the iPad with the 18 ipsw, and that seemed to at least get it up and running again. Sorry your device got bricked :/

 

[gwhizkids]

I tried it out on my M2 11". Worked ok, a few things crashed, but not unexpected since it is a beta. However, what happened next was totally unexpected.

I wanted to revert back to 17.5.1 so I put the iPad in Recovery Mode and tried to Restore using Finder. It downloaded the os, unzipped it, and then threw up error 2006. Tried it multiple times with two Macs and different cables. Always the same result.

I then tried Apple Configurator and chose Restore. Same error and result. Tried Revive and got same error and result.

Had a call with Apple and they were stumped. Took it to the Apple Store today with a Genius Bar appt and they couldn't even communicate with the iPad.

Time of Death: 11:15am

I was pretty frustrated when they said that they need to send it to their depot for further analysis rather than swapping it with a replacement, even though it was still covered by the 1st year warranty. Spent a ton of time talking to the manager and AppleCare and all said the same thing.

So my ticket to trying out Beta 1 will cost me 3-5 business days of being out of pocket with my iPad used for work.

Never thought that "bricking" an Apple device can actually happen, but apparently it does.

Sorry this has happened to you, but thank you for posting your story. No one really thinks it will ever happen to them and as a result, nobody ever takes seriously Apple”s admonition to only install betas on a non-critical device And yes, I am one of those people that does that.

 

[arcite]

Installed the beta yesterday on m1 air. It’s working fine, no issues. Speed seems fine. Nothing groundbreaking.

 

[arcite]

So far, NYT app crashes on open. Doh!

 

[OldRhodie]

I’m still gradually loading my apps and, so far, all work as they should. I’m not going to load any banking apps until well down the line to RC. Streaming services, newspaper apps, alternative browsers, YouTube - all the day to day stuff, works fine.

Not much to write home about, though there are some nice features with the pencil (usb-c) like handwriting and solving various maths problems by writing in Notes or Calculator (a big 👍 for the calculator).