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Apple’s next-generation operating system takes the next step towards its release today, with Apple today issuing the first public beta builds of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS 15 Sequoia, tvOS 18, and HomePod Software 18. If you sign up for Apple’s public beta program with your Apple ID, you’ll be able to select the public beta builds from Software Update in the Settings app.
We covered most of the highlights of these releases, announced at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June, including home screen customization for iOS and iPadOS, window tiling and iPhone mirroring for macOS, and support for RCS text messaging across all of Apple’s platforms. But Apple isn’t ready to show off previews of its Apple Intelligence AI features, including text and image generation capabilities and an improved Siri. Many of these features are still scheduled for “later this summer” and will likely be available in some form in the final release this fall.
Most devices that can run iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS 14 Sonoma can update to the new versions, including owners of the latest generation of Intel Macs. However, some older phones and tablets, as well as the 2018 MacBook Air, won’t be supported by the new release. The watchOS 11 update also won’t support Series 4 and Series 5 models, or the first-generation Apple Watch SE.
Apple also hasn’t released a public beta build of VisionOS 2, the first major update to the Apple Vision Pro operating system, and users who want to try out the new Vision Pro features early will have to opt in to the developer beta, at least for now.
Beta Best Practices
The first public beta is similar (or identical) to the third developer beta build released last week. Because Apple typically releases new developer betas of its next-generation OS releases every two weeks, we can expect the fourth developer beta to be released early next week, followed shortly thereafter by a second, nearly identical public beta build.
Apple’s developer and public beta builds used to be more clearly separated, with a $99-per-year paid developer account membership separating the general public from the earliest, rougher preview builds. That changed last year, when Apple began offering basic developer accounts (and beta software access) for free to anyone who wanted to sign up.
Apple still releases separate developer and public betas, but this is more of an indication of who the beta is for, rather than an actual technical barrier. The developer beta is rough and obviously unfinished, but developers may have the extra patience and technical skill needed to work around these issues. The public beta is still unfinished and unstable, but you can expect at least most basic functionality to work fine.
Regardless of how stable these betas are, the standard warnings apply: make proper backups of your device before updating in case you need to restore to the older, more stable operating system, and don’t install beta software on mission-critical hardware that you absolutely need to operate correctly in your daily life. For iPhones and iPads that connect to iCloud, connecting your device to a PC or Mac and performing a local backup (preferably encrypted) will ensure you have a pre-upgrade backup rather than relying on continuous iCloud backups.