Earlier today, Apple released the first public beta of iOS 12 for iPhone and iPad. The beta is available for users who have signed up to be part of Apple Beta Software Program.
Apple announced iOS 12 during WWDC 2018 and soon released a beta of it for users with a $99/year developer account. However, now it is available for end-users who are signed to the beta software program.
As a fair warning for those who are interested, the iOS 12 is still in development and may contain a lot of bugs and have poor stability. Moreover, some features may not work as intended or not work at all. In other words, do not try it in your primary iPhone, instead you should test it on older iPhone or iPad you do not rely on for your day-to-day tasks.
Like all beta software, the latest iOS also comes with its fair share of bugs. Some known bugs include incorrect location data in Maps and other apps, CarPlay crashing when side and backup cameras are used and dropped calls on FaceTime.
To try the beta you can follow the below steps.
- First register of Apple Beta Software Program.
- Go to Settings > Device > Backup on your iPhone or iPad to backup your device.
- Go to Settings > General > Software Update.
- Download and install the update as usual.
If you are not in the Apple Beta Software Program, but interested to try the latest version of iOS, then you can sign up for it on Apple’s website. During the beta period, releases are seeded rather quickly at first, and then begin to taper off toward the release date.
If you want to opt-out of the beta program you can visit https://beta.apple.com/sp/betaprogram/unenroll. You may also need to roll back to the latest stable. To do that, first opt-out of beta and then go to Settings > General > Software Update on your device to download and install the update.
According to rumors, iOS 12 brings many improvements along with flashy new features. It will also introduce grouped notifications, Group FaceTime, local multiplayer shared AR experiences and more. It also has a new Screen Time feature that records and shows how much we time spent on apps. We can expect Apple to release the update on this fall along with new iPhones.
