That makes sense. But considering COVID was already a massive issue when the keynote happened, they made the decision to announce the public beta despite knowing COVID wasn’t over with yet. Oh well. Maybe next year.
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Still no watchOS public beta.
It wouldn’t surprise me if they cancel the public beta for watchOS. I wonder if they have realised they would be inundated with thousands upon thousands of watches to roll back because half the numpties who installed it hadn’t got a clue what they were doing. They just wanted to play...
True. I know I can use the dev beta, but I'd feel a lot more comfortable putting a public beta on my daily driver than a dev beta. September is coming up though, might as well wait out the last few weeks until the full release is out. I wonder what Apple will say about this at the next WWDC.
Curious about this... especially since over time, the public beta releases of iOS and watchOS have been the same builds, respectively, as the developer previews. If the code is the same and the install process is the same, what's the difference? Genuinely curious why one would make you more comfortable than the other.
Isn't the public beta usually released about a day after the dev beta? If there were any major problems on day one (mainly bricking the watch) don't they usually hold back the public beta until that issue is resolved? I know a beta is a beta and I should be prepared for issues, but I'd think any problems during install that could cause the watch to be bricked during install would hopefully not be there for them to release the public beta.
It may be a silly thing to be concerned about, but with everything going on right now I wouldn't want to deal with the hassle of sending in my watch to be downgraded if it got bricked during install.
Not silly at all... as I said, I was curious. Thanks for your reply.
I suspect that the public beta will be the dev beta, just like with every other OS...and that they are having issues with how to OTA restore the watches if something goes wrong (which is pretty rare but not zero, I think). There's no way Apple is signing up for thousands of returned watches or watches sent in for service, just to get public beta data. So, my guess, is they are behind on refining this process.
I will be fascinated to see how this is done (or if they have managed to find a way to absolutely keep an install from bricking a Watch)
You could always put it on and disable auto update and wait for feedback from the community before updating to the next one in case there are issues.
Just a thought if you wanted to try watchOS 7 (so far so good for me)
Not installing the dev beta the second it goes live has the same effect. Even with stable releases you have the possibility of game breakers hitting you hard (e.g. iOS 8.0.1 bricking cellular and TouchID on iPhone 6 devices).
The public beta is identical to the developer one, it‘s just that they release a day or so later so the thrillseeker hivemind does not shred their phones in case of game breakers.
Yeah I’ve definitely considered doing this. And I might install it now that we’re not on the very first beta.
That makes sense. But considering COVID was already a massive issue when the keynote happened, they made the decision to announce the public beta despite knowing COVID wasn’t over with yet. Oh well. Maybe next year.
At that point, I think there was optimism that it was going to get better, with stores looking to open back up.
I was going to hold out but who knows how long you wait. I went for it and just figured I can change at some point if needed.
iOS 10 beta 4 was 8 days... iOS 11, 12 and 13 beta 4 was 12-14 days... so I'm guessing 2 weeks before beta 5... then weekly updates.
Time passed between beta 4 and beta 5:
iOS 5: 15 days
iOS 6: N/A
iOS 7: 8 days
iOS 8: 14 days
iOS 9: 16 days
iOS 10: 8 days
iOS 11: 14 days
iOS 12: 13 days
iOS 13: 12 days
Not impossible it comes out this week, but likely next week
iOS 5: 15 days
iOS 6: N/A
iOS 7: 8 days
iOS 8: 14 days
iOS 9: 16 days
iOS 10: 8 days
iOS 11: 14 days
iOS 12: 13 days
iOS 13: 12 days
Not impossible it comes out this week, but likely next week