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Apple Allowing Non-Developers to Apply for OS X Beta Program

This is fantastic news for the now more rapid release cycles of OS X, and will hopefully ensure that we get closer to the level of stability at 10.x."5" that we used to get at 10.x."8".
 
I wonder if this will continue to the next version of OSX or if it is just for the rest of Mavericks.
 
does this only apply for 10.9 or will it continue for 10.10? or will it allow for 10.9.4 too?

prior to typing this i should have read but my question still stands with the people ablove me
 
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Pretty sweet! Joined as soon as you guys mentioned it.

It's nice to have a officially condoned way of running the betas! Will be looking forward to 10.10, if my Mac can run it.
 
I am really surprised how the tech press reported on this. Appleseed is a beta program that Apple has had for years. It's nothing new.
From time to time they open their website for specific programs to the public, accept applications from users and then they close the website for the public. Appleseed is invitation based.
All Apple tech sites always spoke of developer programs, and ignored the fact that Appleseed exists.
Now, suddenly this is a new thing..
Ignorance isn't always good...
 
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That's nice. This is the kind of thing Google used to do, back when they were cool :cool:

But wait… "Mac App Store Updates". Nooooooooooooooo! That accursed thing that has made updating Xcode a nightmare!
 
Michael Goff said:
EVER!

I take it you haven't used many products.
Click to expand...

Not sure what you mean by products - but I have used Windows 7, 8 and 8.1

Windows 8 UX is horrible and counterproductive, even after using it for a long time it's still awful - stability wise I don't find it much improved to Windows 7 which work perfectly fine a part from applications not responding and compatibility issues - which is still present in Windows 8 (I don't mind these issues so much, I mean OSX can sometimes have compatibility issues and applications do stop responding)
 
linuxcooldude said:
Installed the beta but cant seem to find Feedback assistant anywhere.
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In build 13D45a the feedback assistant app itself should be in System/Library/CoreServices

There should also be an alias to it in your utilities folder.

Developers were until today a bit perplexed as to why this appleseed thing is in a developer preview and when trying to use it with a developer id, it just gave a message to use the developer bug report website instead (something they had already been using for years). So it seemed a bit useless to developers to have it at all in there.

But now we know why it is there. We now know apple were planning to have a public beta testing program.

I have an alternative apple id and signed up today for the public beta testing program and finally have got the feedback assistant to work with my second id.

But I actually prefer the developer bug report website anyway. So I might just stick to using that for now.
 
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attila said:
That is completely up to you.

Dev teams also take risks testing their apps on an unstable system.

Use Time Machine to be safe.
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Yeah. I used to run betas on partitions and it's pretty easy to set this up, but I found that virtual machines take less space, so now I use those instead.

But now there is a relatively new problem (started with build 13D38 and continues with 13D43 and 13D45a), namely that a vm will boot up in vmware fusion but not parallels desktop. Nobody seems to know why. Or if they do they are not telling us (and by they I mean apple AND vmware AND parallels!)

So if you want a vm of the latest mavericks beta, I'd say go with vmware fusion for now till the mystery is sorted out.

If vmware also failed, I'd be going back to partitions, but thankfully I didn't have to do that.
 
polterbyte said:
I like this. It will pose, I believe, several challenges to the Apple team, which will certainly be flooded with "bugs" resulting from inexpert assessments.
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Sorry what is an inexpert assessment? That's just not a word, I think you mean amateur but also, a bug is a bug if you get it, it's not "inexpert" it's just a bug.

I've seen a metric tonne in OSX, the finder resizing the stuck download progress bar etc. These weren't fixed but I find them especially annoying and makes me think that if these small graphical error could not be spotted what holes and security issues are looming underneath.
 
Frankied22 said:
I wonder if this will continue to the next version of OSX or if it is just for the rest of Mavericks.
Click to expand...

I hope it will happen with more than just 10.9.3. If the change to OS X 10.10 is as great as rumored, Apple is going to need all the help it can get. The future beta testing of unreleased OS's may start with developers only but hopefully later on in the development process it will become public as it approaches gold master.
 
thepowerofnone said:
This is such a stupid move by Apple... You're going to get some keen yet misguided people upgrading their primary computer to a new OS with no application support then complaining when nothing works and they can't work out how to revert to the stable OS. If this happens for iOS the problem will be compounded by the much greater number of non-tech savvy iOS users.

Sure, your gran won't be doing it, and those who do it will do so at their own risk, but things will go wrong and they will up blaming Apple for their stupidity. $99 isn't expensive as a developer fee and it acts as a deterrent from acts of stupidity.
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I agree that doing this for iOS may cause more problems as more people will download it, but doing it for OS X is a good move in my opinion.

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petvas said:
I am really surprised how the tech press reported on this. Appleseed is a beta program that Apple has had for years. It's nothing new.
From time to time they open their website for specific programs to the public, accept applications from users and then they close the website for the public. Appleseed is invitation based.
All Apple tech sites always spoke of developer programs, and ignored the fact that Appleseed exists.
Now, suddenly this is a new thing..
Ignorance isn't always good...
Click to expand...

I think you've missed that point.

This is something new. You can sign in and download straight away, no waiting to be accepted etc.
 
This is good... for all...

However the cofidentially sucks big time...

I myself have leaked Parallels stuff as a beta tester before a version became public...

Read the note :- "Only if Apple catches you." but if your stupid enough to tell that posts it online, or put it on a website, or know heaps of friends, then your walking into danger..

I've told my friends about beta stuff all the time for various products..... I have no shame to keep anything a secret... Its called the internet....... these NDA agreements shouldn't even exist.

Having said that, i guess its not good usig beta releases on production Mac yes ?
 
alexgowers said:
Sorry what is an inexpert assessment? That's just not a word, I think you mean amateur but also, a bug is a bug if you get it, it's not "inexpert" it's just a bug.

I've seen a metric tonne in OSX, the finder resizing the stuck download progress bar etc. These weren't fixed but I find them especially annoying and makes me think that if these small graphical error could not be spotted what holes and security issues are looming underneath.
Click to expand...

Those are definitely spotted and are all filed as "known bugs". The reason they don't get fixed immediately is because those kinds of issues come last. The security issues, data loss, hardware malfunction etc, those are a lot more serious.

And there's such thing as incorrectly reporting bugs that don't exist. That's why paying 99$ was a good idea. I hope Apple can now deal with all the "hey this is not working, fix it" type of bug reports, which will be more like rants.
 
Doing this now :)

Is this a move to let move people (aka the public) to help all fix and submit bug fixes/feedback on this too ?


Would would u guys advice ? doing this under Parallels or my main mac ?

Either way, i don't use many apps, so if need, i can be up and running in under 2 hours fresh install anyway if it mucks up. also then released, will the beta utility stay installed, or must u manually uninstall it ?

Now, What are the chances of the iOS beta program be for all users too ? Solution solved :)
 
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petvas said:
I am really surprised how the tech press reported on this. Appleseed is a beta program that Apple has had for years. It's nothing new.
From time to time they open their website for specific programs to the public, accept applications from users and then they close the website for the public. Appleseed is invitation based.
All Apple tech sites always spoke of developer programs, and ignored the fact that Appleseed exists.
Now, suddenly this is a new thing..
Ignorance isn't always good...
Click to expand...

It is new. Appleseed and Beta seed are two separate programs. Appleseed is still "by invitation only" whereas anyone can join Beta. Also Beta is not guaranteed to include all builds of a version among other differences. And, no Appleseed is not being folded into Beta Seed.
 
ValSalva said:
I hope it will happen with more than just 10.9.3. If the change to OS X 10.10 is as great as rumored, Apple is going to need all the help it can get. The future beta testing of unreleased OS's may start with developers only but hopefully later on in the development process it will become public as it approaches gold master.
Click to expand...

This is likely correct. Pushing early betas/alphas out to the masses is not a good idea.
 
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