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Do not run beta operating system on your primary device.
This is the standard advice given to users everywhere, whenever they have the opportunity to test the latest and the best. It's always our advice, too. This is good advice, and you should probably consider it.
EXCEPT…
In the case of iOS 12, the waters are a little muddy. Yes, of course, there are plenty of reasons to go to beta.apple.com on the iPhone or iPad that you use every day and sign up for the beta. There is a small profile to download, and then new iOS 12 beta versions will be delivered via the software update, as if it were regular releases. So, although you should not jump into the iOS 12 beta unless it's on a secondary device, Apple makes sure it's easy to!
And then there are all these features to test: Screen Time and Memoji and Siri shortcuts! Better photos in portrait mode and improved gestures! Group FaceTime chats and bulk notifications! Maybe this time the usual compromises of stability are worth it?
[For more on the features in iOS 12, check our iOS 12 hub, our list of features that didn’t make the WWDC keynote, or one on the hidden features in iOS 12.]
Normal rules do not apply
The new versions of iOS always come with a bunch of new features, but early beta versions are often a hot mess. Some of the major new features may be missing, but you can live with that, right? The big problem is that half of your daily business stops working.
And, of course, the performance usually takes a plunge. In recent years, beta versions of iOS have achieved parity of performance than with the regular version at the very end of the upgrade cycle, usually in August.
What's worse, battery life is usually terrible in the first three or four beta versions. It's not unusual to hear stories of having to charge one's iPhone three or four times a day from the brave fools who install the betas at the beginning.
But with iOS 12, these two critical setbacks are apparently not yet a problem. In fact, during the first two beta versions, users reported improved performance, especially on older devices. This is perhaps not surprising, since performance is such an important feature of iOS 12 that Apple has conducted its WWDC survey with it.
The battery life does not seem to be a problem in iOS 12 beta, either. New iOS upgrades, beta or not, often accompany a short period of reduced performance and battery life when the system reindexes and caches content, but the General consensus is that is much livelier than iOS 11.4 and does not suffer from a noticeable battery life penalty.
Of course, iOS 12 will have an occasional crash or problems with applications, but these types of issues seem to be relatively rare. And let's face it, iOS 11.4 still has its share of problems. If iOS 12 is faster, and adds a ton of new features, and is only marginally less stable than iOS 11.4, why do not install it on this iPhone or iPad that you use every day, is not it?
Normal rules always apply
Of course, it is not so simple. Some of the problems reported with iOS 12 are nothing more than minor inconveniences, of course. But the others are more serious. GPS, for example, works well for some but is horribly slow and inaccurate for others. Some third-party keyboards sometimes have strange problems, such as interface problems and formatting problems.
We have not seen any report of the beta making your iPhone in a brick almost unusable, and this kind of problems are common in beta versions of iOS. But these are not just small issues with the new features that are not quite finished yet. These are fundamental flaws that could seriously affect the way you use your iPhone or iPad.
Maybe you will not encounter any critical issues, or maybe your phone will stomp every time you pick it up. It all depends on how you use your device, the apps you use most often, the model of your iPhone or iPad, and just good old random chances.
Even though the public beta of iOS 12 gives you access to many new features, makes your phone faster and does not harm the battery life, there are still many reasons not to # 39; install.
Moreover, if everything that really matters, it is Siri Shortcuts, you should know that the application Shortcuts does not appear in the first public beta.
For beta test or not?
In the end, our recommendation remains the same: do not install the public beta of iOS 12 on the devices you depend on every day.
However, the impressive performance, the relative stability (compared to the previous beta of the major version of iOS), and an excellent battery life require us to follow this with some caveats:
1. If you have an older device – for example, an iPhone or iPad that is three years old or older – and you feel frustrated with frustration, then you can give the beta a chance. Many beta testers report that their old devices are feeling much faster. Making an iPhone or iPad "almost unusable" usable again is worth a bit of risk and the potential headache of restoring a backup.
2. If you have a secondary device ready in case things go wrong, go ahead and run this beta on your main device. Just be ready to use your emergency phone in your emergency phone if you need it, and make sure it is up to date and that it contains all the applications and data you need.
That goes without saying, but you still need to back up your iPhone on iTunes before you install an iOS beta. If the benefits do not outweigh the issues and you want to uninstall the beta, you will need this backup!
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