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Apple Makes Developer Betas Free to Download and Install

I'm struggling to work out how the usual suspects are going characterize this as an evil money-grubbing scheme to screw their sheep users. Someone will figure it out.
 
Good, now they need to remove the limits on sideloading for non-payers using iOS and everything will be gravy (re-signing sideloaded apps once a year is fine, but every few days? Stupid!)
 
AnonymousCward said:
Good, now they need to remove the limits on sideloading for non-payers using iOS and everything will be gravy (re-signing sideloaded apps once a year is fine, but every few days? Stupid!)
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they will, you just gotta move to Europe when the time comes ;):p
 
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Great news I cancelled the auto renewal on my Dev account this year, thought I’d wait it out and see if there was anything worth paying for this time around.

Only thing is every time I try to update to 17 it goes through all the usual motions on my iPhone, it restarts then nothing go to settings and there’s 17 available for download again???

My Apple TV’s updated fine and waiting to see if my iPad installs ok but so far my iPhones stuck in a loop!

Anyone else getting this?
 
JiggyJaggy said:
Anyone downloaded Sonoma onto a Macbook 12 or is that just reaching too far?
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Macbook 12 doesn't support anything past Big Sur and Apple just announced it's placing it on the discontinued list. I still keep mine updated but don't use it very often.
 
rorschach said:
I wonder if this isn't just finally acknowledging reality. People who want the betas are going to find a way to get them. Might as well let them do it officially rather than going through sketchy websites, risking getting scammed, etc.
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Plus, it’s not like many people were paying for the dev accounts just for the dev beta anyways and the non-dev people who install it are likely enthusiasts who are more likely to test new features find bugs to fix.
 
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TruthWatcher412 said:
still seems to be trying to charge me $99 when I sign up on developer.apple.com or is that still a charge, but anyone can just install?
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You need a developer account, cancel out of the pay screen and then check your update after rebooting device. Worked for me.
 
Martyimac said:
I don't think so. I am only signed up for the public betas but as I speak, just downloaded the developer beta and it is now installing on my m1 iMac.
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Maybe it’s different on iOS? The dev website just told me to sign in via the app and the beta didn’t show up until I did it.
 
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Ahh I remember when I would jump on the "developer" betas as soon as they came out. Now I can finally be honest and say that I was never an official "developer". 😅

I ran the beta 1s from Yosemite to Big Sur. Monterey is when I lost interest and haven't since then.
 
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danuff said:
So, why are WE developers paying $100/year when the average joe-smow can get the betas for free? Apple’s going into dangerous territory here.
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Because people who actually develop apps receive benefits that are a lot more useful than access to betas. If you were paying for a developer account just to access betas then why exactly? Either wait for the public beta or get it from, umm, other sources...
 
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Is this a US only thing? I'm in Australia and can only see the ios16 public beta nothing for ios17.
 
So, if dev beta is free to install, what’s the point of public beta then? Everybody who are interested would just activate their free dev account to download it. Public beta in essence is only 1-2 versions behind with much of the content the same regardless. Yes, dev beta can cause issues and a bit more unstable, but tbh For Apple, I don’t see much point maintaining a public beta program otherwise. They could’ve just released dev beta a bit slower.

Free of charge beta is still cool, considering someone spending $99/year just to use dev beta here and there, that $99 is largely wasted potential.
 
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danuff said:
So, why are WE developers paying $100/year when the average joe-smow can get the betas for free? Apple’s going into dangerous territory here.
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Regular developer enrollment allows, not only access to sell your apps in the App store, but for you to install iOS apps ("side-load" from any source code or Xcode project) that will run for one year without re-signing, or even give those apps to friends that will run for 90 days (via Testflight).

But if you only do Mac apps and don't need to sell them in the App store, there's less difference.
 
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KoolAid-Drink said:
I'm seeing Sonoma on the developer website, but only a link to download the Silicon Mac image. No Intel image to download?
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I saw this also. Maybe it's the final slap from Apple to tell us Intel Inside(tm) is a misnomer now.
 
Does anyone else think they did this because the initial developer betas for the last few years have been extremely smooth and with more people testing the more data they get and are then able to release better quality final releases ultimately?

I have yet to notice a bug on the phone itself with 17b1. The only gnarly bug I've seen was when trying out the FaceTime on Apple TV(os 17b1) feature, which considering that involves TWO developer betas, is extremely buggy.
 
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