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Isn't NDA on something that is "free" kind of irrelevant at this point?

Nope. Lots of games employ "free" betas leading up to their launch, and if an NDA is in effect, they will enforce them like nobody's business. When ESO went into beta weekends late last year, they were banning people left and right for violations of the NDA, up to and including streaming gameplay on Twitch.

Having an NDA is completely unrelated to the cost of a product. There are a lot of reasons why an NDA is implemented - testing specific features, not the full product, the unfinished nature of many betas, etc. Another reason for enforcing NDAs is to prevent competitors from taking your ideas for themselves and potentially beating you to market with them.
 
Nope. Lots of games employ "free" betas leading up to their launch, and if an NDA is in effect, they will enforce them like nobody's business. When ESO went into beta weekends late last year, they were banning people left and right for violations of the NDA, up to and including streaming gameplay on Twitch.

Having an NDA is completely unrelated to the cost of a product. There are a lot of reasons why an NDA is implemented - testing specific features, not the full product, the unfinished nature of many betas, etc. Another reason for enforcing NDAs is to prevent competitors from taking your ideas for themselves and potentially beating you to market with them.

Maybe you forgot to mention that a man keeping his agreements is honourable? It seems to be a long lost concept nowadays, sadly.
 
I feel a n00b flood a-comin'


Not really, as it's not really being advertised to general public, it's not on the main page of apples site. The only real way to find out about it is tech sites, most those people know about betas anyway. The people that sign up to this will be mostly people that did it dodgily before, or those who wanted to, but didn't want to risk doing it dodgily, so not really 'n00b' in the sense of 'joe public'.
 
I can see this going terribly wrong. Stuck with a bad bug without an easy route back if not on a testing partition. Hmmm . . .

If people are dumb enough to install Beta software on their primary/production systems then that's their own fault. Some people will have to learn the hard way.
 
Waste of Money?

Funny that everyone seems to think that everyone who has a dev account is wasting $99 per year. Developer accounts are for developers. You're paying for the ability to sell your software in the appstore. If you just want early access to betas, yes it is a waste of money and it always has been. The current versions of Mac OS are just fine. Xcode is free.

The funny thing about all of this is that betas are now publicly available to anyone but you still need to agree to an NDA. Anyone can get it but we can't talk about it.

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The web site really only promises the 10.9.3 beta...
 
No, Microsoft Bob is the worst in terms of UX. Windows 1.0 had a horrible UX as well.

Hehe Microsoft Bob took skeuomorphism to a whole new level

Hmm I don't know I think even Windows 1.0 is easier to navigate than Windows 8 - plus is wasn't bad for it's time. - Windows 8 is.

Just accept it Windows 8 is a POS

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No, Microsoft Bob is the worst in terms of UX. Windows 1.0 had a horrible UX as well.

http://holykaw.alltop.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/31856110-media_httpwwwgeeksare_HBAxg.jpg
 
Hehe Microsoft Bob took skeuomorphism to a whole new level

Hmm I don't know I think even Windows 1.0 is easier to navigate than Windows 8 - plus is wasn't bad for it's time. - Windows 8 is.

Just accept it Windows 8 is a POS

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http://holykaw.alltop.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/31856110-media_httpwwwgeeksare_HBAxg.jpg

No, I won't accept that your personal opinion is fact.

Because it isn't.

Also, Windows 8 still has a desktop that you can have multiple windows on. So that picture is wrong.
 
Apple Allowing Non-Developers to Apply for OS X Beta Program

No, I won't accept that your personal opinion is fact.



Because it isn't.



Also, Windows 8 still has a desktop that you can have multiple windows on. So that picture is wrong.

A desktop that is missing the start menu. That's what the audience are demanding. Even MS know Windows 8 is a bad egg, as they're renaming next years update Windows 9 and bringing back the start menu. You always hate on people when they post about their bad experiences and dislike of windows 8, slamming their own opinion as being wrong. Face it, Windows 8 is up there with the terrible MS OS's along with Vista and ME.
 
A desktop that is missing the start menu. That's what the audience are demanding. Even MS know Windows 8 is a bad egg, as they're renaming next years update Windows 9 and bringing back the start menu. You always hate on people when they post about their bad experiences and dislike of windows 8, slamming their own opinion as being wrong. Face it, Windows 8 is up there with the terrible MS OS's along with Vista and ME.

We don't know that for certain. Although, it would make sense if they did considering it would be a new version every 3 years.

Also, no, I slam people's opinions when they try to present them as fact. I think it is good, that doesn't make it so. I find the UI to be usable.

Face it, there is nothing structurally wrong with Windows 8. There is a different UI, one that we could debate the merits of.

Windows 8 is not a terrible OS simply because some people online don't like the UI. Hell, I was told it was too hard to use by somebody, too confusing. My mom, who complained when I changed the browser from IE because 'the internet was gone' took about five minutes to get used to the new UI.

Oh, and they're bringing a new start menu. It won't be the old one.

And the cherry on top is that OS X has no start menu, and people are able to use that just fine. Or is OS X unusable because it lacks a start menu?
 
We don't know that for certain. Although, it would make sense if they did considering it would be a new version every 3 years.



Also, no, I slam people's opinions when they try to present them as fact. I think it is good, that doesn't make it so. I find the UI to be usable.



Face it, there is nothing structurally wrong with Windows 8. There is a different UI, one that we could debate the merits of.



Windows 8 is not a terrible OS simply because some people online don't like the UI. Hell, I was told it was too hard to use by somebody, too confusing. My mom, who complained when I changed the browser from IE because 'the internet was gone' took about five minutes to get used to the new UI.



Oh, and they're bringing a new start menu. It won't be the old one.



And the cherry on top is that OS X has no start menu, and people are able to use that just fine. Or is OS X unusable because it lacks a start menu?


You present your opinion as fact often, as I have seen repeatedly. You repeatedly tell people they must have no experience of any other versions of windows, you even tried to shoot down a guy that had used windows for over 15 years or so, just because you didn't like his opinion.

A terrible UI does make for a terrible OS, you cannot separate the two. As much as you say 'don't judge a book by it's cover', first impressions count, the UI gives the first impression.

The fact Microsoft have brought windows 9 forwards (as it was going to be 8.2), means they know it's a tarnished OS.

Again, the fact they're bringing back a start menu at all, means they know they screwed up. Look at all the people that got excited when they said the start button was coming back, but then slammed Microsoft as it just took people to the metro start screen. Even microsoft can acknowledge they screwed up with windows 8, but you can't admit it's failings for other people.

Again, you can tell when you're flailing in a debate as you drag other OS's into your responses, as usual. Surprised you didn't go to your usual stable of bringing Linux into your post. Other OS's were not the point of the debate. It was on Windows 8. You can't defend an OS by saying that other OS is worse. If you can't defend the OS based on it's own merits, then you've lost any sense of credibility in the faith of your opinion.
 
You present your opinion as fact often, as I have seen repeatedly. You repeatedly tell people they must have no experience of any other versions of windows, you even tried to shoot down a guy that had used windows for over 15 years or so, just because you didn't like his opinion.

A terrible UI does make for a terrible OS, you cannot separate the two. As much as you say 'don't judge a book by it's cover', first impressions count, the UI gives the first impression.

The fact Microsoft have brought windows 9 forwards (as it was going to be 8.2), means they know it's a tarnished OS.

Again, the fact they're bringing back a start menu at all, means they know they screwed up. Look at all the people that got excited when they said the start button was coming back, but then slammed Microsoft as it just took people to the metro start screen. Even microsoft can acknowledge they screwed up with windows 8, but you can't admit it's failings for other people.

Again, you can tell when you're flailing in a debate as you drag other OS's into your responses, as usual. Surprised you didn't go to your usual stable of bringing Linux into your post. Other OS's were not the point of the debate. It was on Windows 8. You can't defend an OS by saying that other OS is worse. If you can't defend the OS based on it's own merits, then you've lost any sense of credibility in the faith of your opinion.

If somebody says it is the worst, then yes I will say they have no real experience.

Also, it is not a terrible UI. It isn't the greatest, but it isn't terrible.

Also, with 9? That is not certain. There is evidence that they're making WP 8.2. If they do, there will be 8.2.

Are the problem with 8? Yes. Is it the worst or mot unusable OS ever? No.

As for whether or not I'm going to win this discussion, I cant. This is an argument of opinions. You think it is the worst, and I don't. Obviously there's no way that you will change your extreme opinion. You will keep defending it with things that have no real bearing on whether it is good or bad, and then you will continue to make the assertions that it is bad.

No evidence, just pontification.

I could defend the OS on its own merits, but you haven't been paying attention anyway. It would be like showing a blind man the Mona Lisa, you're incapable of seeing what I'm talking about. All you know is that you hate Windows 8, and that means it's bad. Oh, and you know some people online have a bad opinion of it. That also, somehow, means that it is bad.

I think that type of argument has a term.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum
 
Admittedly I haven't looked into it nor read the entire thread to see if it was answered, but 2 things come to my mind.

1.) Will betas for non developers be available at the same time as developers. For instance a few hours after WWDC when OS X 10.10 is hopefully available to developers, can we download it to, or do we have to wait a week or some other amount of time?

2.) (Kind of a continuation of #1) Will they give us all betas (x.1, x.2, x.3) etc. or will they wait until devs are finding fewer and fewer bugs and give us a later version.
 
Admittedly I haven't looked into it nor read the entire thread to see if it was answered, but 2 things come to my mind.
1.) Will betas for non developers be available at the same time as developers. For instance a few hours after WWDC when OS X 10.10 is hopefully available to developers, can we download it to, or do we have to wait a week or some other amount of time?

I believe you'll be invited to beta-test ONLY the OS X 10.10.x versions, to trial-and-error the bug fixes reported for the initial OS X 10.10 public release.
 
Admittedly I haven't looked into it nor read the entire thread to see if it was answered, but 2 things come to my mind.

1.) Will betas for non developers be available at the same time as developers. For instance a few hours after WWDC when OS X 10.10 is hopefully available to developers, can we download it to, or do we have to wait a week or some other amount of time?

2.) (Kind of a continuation of #1) Will they give us all betas (x.1, x.2, x.3) etc. or will they wait until devs are finding fewer and fewer bugs and give us a later version.

I had a look at the direct links for the public delta and combo and compared them with the corresponding direct links for the developer versions. They are different links (albeit from the same server).

Hence apple could release them at different times - or even release some to one program and not the other.
 
I think BDM STUDIOS NL was just trying to say public beta testers won't get the developer previews of 10.10 before it is publicly released and will only get the betas for 10.10 after it is publicly released.

I don't know if that is true. Appleseed do get redemption codes for developer previews before public release, so maybe apple could offer public beta testers some of those as well.
 
This will be amazing for testing 10.10, thank you Apple!

Now if only they would allow it for iOS as well.
 
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