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Anyone using public Beta on their main device?

Have it on my iPhone 16 Pro and so far the only thing I’ve noticed is whenever I turn on an Apple TV in my house I get a notification banner on my iPhone lock screen for the Apple TV remote. Not sure if this is by design or a glitch. I do have those notifications turned off for Apple TV.
 
I've put the public beta on my 17PM, iPad 10, M1 Air and Watch SE3... no regrets so far - they all run noticeably faster and more smoothly than under 26; amazing that Apple has been able to do this, why couldnt they just make sure iOS26 ran this well in the first place 😵
 
martin2345uk said:
I've put the public beta on my 17PM, iPad 10, M1 Air and Watch SE3... no regrets so far - they all run noticeably faster and more smoothly than under 26; amazing that Apple has been able to do this, why couldnt they just make sure iOS26 ran this well in the first place 😵
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i think it's tick and tock - major UI and feature changes > then stability.
(Siri AI is the exception, since they've effed it up for years)
 
martin2345uk said:
... amazing that Apple has been able to do this, why couldnt they just make sure iOS26 ran this well in the first place 😵
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That's like asking a carpenter why his prototype table isn't already perfectly level, or an author why their first draft has so many typos in it.

Software development is an iterative process. Even "final versions" are a misnomer... there really is no such thing. The product changes slowly over time -- hopefully in good ways and not bad.
 
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Yeah, I don't usually but I saw overwhelming comments about it being stable so I decided why not.

So far, I haven't had any problems. I used New Siri to look up my known traveler number and Southwest reward number while booking a work trip, she got them both to me with no problem after only indexing for a few hours. Telling her to turn off my lights or start a timer is slower, which is kind of annoying. Also, I have no idea why they redesigned Siri's interface. The rainbow border was much nicer than the black blob.
 
Not yet, at this point Tahoe (on mac) isn't irritating me enough to bother to switch and ipadOS/iOS is... fine for me on the devices i daily drive. Super busy at work - i have a secondary iPad Air M1 here i could put the public beta on but haven't gotten to it yet and i feel we're probably getting close to golden master soon.

Previously i have run the betas on my primary devices, and i generally switch them all at once to benefit from the new integration between the 4 platforms (inc. watch).
 
I don't have it on my main device, but I am feeling a little FOMO at the moment. It seems like most people are saying it runs well, yet I just bought this phone (Iphone 17 Pro) and don't want to do anything to it within the first couple of months. Still, I am looking forward to trying that new Siri AI because when I was on Android and was using Gemini for a time, it seemed pretty good.
 
sjsharksfan12 said:
... I am looking forward to trying that new Siri AI because when I was on Android and was using Gemini for a time, it seemed pretty good.
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In that case, you may be interested to learn that I stumbled upon an interesting video the other day that does a decent job of explaining exactly how much of Google's Gemini model is being used in the new Siri AI.

TLDW: It's none.
 
Gorlammi said:
Kind of a weird question. EVERYONE running public beta, is running it on their main device.
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I think the future is companies like Apple pushing 'beta' with a label for legal protection and most people using it on their daily driver as the norm. I also think these betas are getting more stable as the years go by.
 
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TwoBytes said:
I think the future is companies like Apple pushing 'beta' with a label for legal protection and most people using it on their daily driver as the norm. I also think these betas are getting more stable as the years go by.
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Certainly more stable over all than it was years ago...I had some major issues with dev betas back in the day. At least one trip to an Apple store for a full DFU restore while on vacation.

But this year is a special year. iOS 27 has such a strong focus on performance that even early betas are performing better than mature iOS 26.
 
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It’s totally fine. No bugs that have ‘ruined my day’. Battery is slightly worse, but if you’re not headed out for an entire day without a charge, youll survive. On my 15pro, animations, frame rates for everything OS-wise have been much smoother and faster. Genuinely better performance across the board, and indexing took only a day. Best beta I have ever been on.
 
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This year yes because I have the time for issues on my hands.
Worst part so far with iPhone 16 in the EU besides no Siri AI has been bad battery life initially and the phone running very hot. It's as fluid as iOS 26 or even better if your phone ran sluggish before.
watchOS and tvOS 27 seem as good as 26 stable so far no reduction in battery life on Apple Watch.
Minor bugs with iMessage and Whatsapp, Fitness accolades and charging while FaceTime due to heat.
 
EDIT: sorry, wrong forum, my post is about macOS. Trying to delete this...


just be warned, that installing Golden Gate beta will update your
System Firmware Version to: mBoot-20457.0.77.0.2,
what was meaningful for me, was that battery smc started to be operated by firmware, so Al dente and similar software stopped working properly (as for now). I went back to Sequoia, but the firmware remained. So now i am using this:

github.com

GitHub - charlie0129/batt: Control and limit battery charging on Apple Silicon MacBooks.

Control and limit battery charging on Apple Silicon MacBooks. - charlie0129/batt
github.com github.com

There is a nice explanation what happened, i had no clue when my macbook suddenly started charging to 100 and ignored all settings i had.
 
resonate said:
just be warned, that installing Golden Gate beta will update your
System Firmware Version to: mBoot-20457.0.77.0.2,
what was meaningful for me, was that battery smc started to be operated by firmware,
Click to expand...

For me this is a huge plus, as the 80% limit I set my battery to under Settings now means it stops charging at 80% even when the laptop is shut down.
 
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Yeah, been great so far. Loving the new photo editing features. Siri is pretty cool although not tested it fully yet.
 
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one more said:
Have been using developer betas on my main devices since 9 June, no regrets. ✌️
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Same here. Only thing that wasn’t good was on my MBP because it corrupted a locally stored iPhone backup. It got downgraded to Tahoe because of that issue at the Apple Store.
 
nortonandreev said:
All good. Don't forget to disable device analytics, if you care about battery life.

Some issues here and there with Apple Music, when listening offline. But, as others have said, go through the Beta 3 thread and decide for yourself.

My verdict is that it is fine as PB1.
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Wouldn't disabling that hamper beta testing and reporting issues? (Looks tempting to be a beta tester, but wouldn't beta testing include diagnostic handlers and additional analytics that will use more power compared to a GR?)
 
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Antaris said:
Wouldn't disabling that hamper beta testing and reporting issues? (Looks tempting to be a beta tester, but wouldn't beta testing include diagnostic handlers and additional analytics that will use more power compared to a GR?)
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Yes, it will make any bug reports pretty pointless. which is fine if you don't plan to report bugs i guess.
 
Antaris said:
Wouldn't disabling that hamper beta testing and reporting issues? (Looks tempting to be a beta tester, but wouldn't beta testing include diagnostic handlers and additional analytics that will use more power compared to a GR?)
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My understanding is that the analytics (under settings / privacy) are sent to Apple daily so they can get a feel as to how people use their phones. When you log a FB, it gathers specific analytics at that point of time anyway, so the two aren't related.

There's a further option regarding "enhanced beta feedback" which nore thoroughly tracks how the phone is used. I have that disabled as it states it will send contents of text messages, contacts, call logs etc, and although my device usage is rather dull, I don't see why Apple needs that stuff just to work out that how many messages I send a day (for example) for their analytics.
 
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