Can the public beta be considered for daily use?

[robert1998]

Hello guys! I want some oppinions from you...is High Sierra stable enought for daily use or should I stick with Sierra?
I know it s a beta and bugs appear and also I have a secondary machine running Windows

 

[Floris]

The answer to the question you already know, seek within.

 

[throAU]

Depends how much you rely on your Mac, and how annoying random application bugs may be.

Do you have time to waste chasing down problems if they occur? Is it (the potential for bugs and maybe stability issues, data corruption if you're unlucky, inability to restore your data into a non-beta machine, etc.) worth it to you to have the new features a couple of months early?

Only you can answer that.

I've run betas many times in the past and whilst the novelty to see what is coming is nice, as far as getting work done goes it just gets in the way. Some apps may stop working, in a couple of the betas for previous OS X versions i had wifi flakiness, bonjour issues, etc.

Personally: I'm waiting.

Betas are more useful if you're a developer, to get your software ready for the new platform. If you're an end user... only you can really answer if it's worth the hassle.

 

[ryxn]

I've been using the Beta has my daily driver since it was first released (non-APFS). It's surprisingly solid for the most part, but I have encountered a few small bugs mostly related to the GUI. However, these aren't incredibly adverse, and I've managed to go about my day with no troubles at all. As always, backup your data before installing.

 

[bbfc]

Depends on the Mac you have. Create a separate partition and install it on there. I’m using it on an external drive and it’s not a good experience on my 2011 MacBook Pro (no SSD/4GB RAM). Memory pressure is high most of the time and it suffers from lag. It runs much better than the previous developer builds did, but it’s no where near being used as a daily drive IMO.

I’m buying an SSD next month so hopefully that will help.

 

[EugW]

IMO no.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Never

 

[Sourstash]

On top of that I have APFS and I'm unable to sign into the Mac App Store to download apps.

 

[TMRJIJ]

This should normally not be taken into consideration unless you are fully prepared for the worst to happen. I.e. Your Mac not booting up.

 

[macpro2000]

It was much more desirable to get the betas during the Tiger & Leopard days, as Apple had some awesome groundbreaking features they added during new releases. Now not so much.

 

[iMi]

If you use the computer for personal needs and don't mind dealing with occasional (or perhaps even frequent) glitches, then I would say go ahead and give it a shot. If you use the computer for work, that would be a firm "no" from me.

 

[dogslobber]

I'm planning to transition all my company's mission critical production systems over next week.

 

[Macintosh IIcx]

I'm planning to transition all my company's mission critical production systems over next week.

High risk, low reward! I like me some bold moves! ​

 

[macdragonfl]

It really depends on your level of expertise with the Mac OS, if your a advanced user I would say its ok. In my case I have multiple drives with the current release version on one, the latest Sierra Beta on another and a third for the High Sierra Beta. And a Windows 10 partition on the current release drive. Important data, pictures, music and video are on icloud as well. It is a must to know how to easily undo what you have done. And be prepared to do so. You should know the terminal and commands enough to understand what it's doing. Some say its unstable because a icon is not right. Others panic when one thing goes wrong, go back and scare people to death on the forums. In the case of the latter two examples never!!! You are providing a service for Apple and other users and not getting paid for it. I find satisfaction in that and fixing problems with a group of other advanced users as a hobby.

 

[tedson]

I'm planning to transition all my company's mission critical production systems over next week.

I like the cut of his jib.

 

[Taz Mangus]

Depends on the Mac you have. Create a separate partition and install it on there.

This. I understand people are anixious for the latest and greatest but why not play it safe just in case.

 

[oscarodas]

I have been using it everyday since release, now build 17A291m is the latest build, and I haven't had any problems, my computer is an iMac 2011 and everything is very snappy, so is up to you to try.

 

[jbachandouris]

I installed it yesterday and it seems to be running ok for me. As others have already stated, if it's for personal use and you don't mind the occasional bug, go for it. If not, wait it out. Nothing exciting so far.

 

[saxon48]

Other than the storage deletion bug (which seems to at least be mitigated - though by no means fixed - by Apple's decision to disable Time Machine in the current build), it's not awful. But, as others have already stated, stay far away if you use your computer for super important stuff.

 

[chscag]

I installed it on an external hard drive that I cloned from Sierra 10.12.5 with CCC. Runs a bit slow, but at least I still have the use of my production machine. I would not install the beta on a machine that you need for production or work of any kind.

 

[Crazy Badger]

I installed on my 2011 iMac yesterday, and after installing betas for Little Snitch and 1Password have everything working as it was before (except Time Machine backups). For the 1st Public Beta it seems very stable and noticably faster than the 10.12.6 beta I was running beforehand. I even updated to the APFS file system on my boot SSD!

Whether YOU can use it as a 'daily driver' is a question only YOU can answer. It really depends on how much YOU depend on your machine. My iMac is a machine of convenience as I also have a MacBook which I tend to do most of my work on during the day. It's nice to have a larger screen to work on at home, but if it wasn't working at all it wouldn't be a major problem. If it was my only machine, I don't think I'd even be updating when the final release drops, and would wait for .1 or .2 updates. Running the beta on my iMac gives me some confidence to run the final release on my MacBook a little earlier as I already know what should work.

 

[EugW]

I installed it on an external hard drive that I cloned from Sierra 10.12.5 with CCC. Runs a bit slow, but at least I still have the use of my production machine. I would not install the beta on a machine that you need for production or work of any kind.

Yeah, that's what I did. I really don't understand why so many people install this early beta on their primary drivers and then are bit surprised when they get a borked machine

I did this mainly to confirm the QuickTime media codec upgrades in High Sierra are working properly on my 2017 Macs, and to confirm my important software also work. I'm glad to report that they do. Furthermore, HEVC playback on the new MacBook is glorious.

 

[robert1998]

I installed it and it runs smoothly so far...
I didn't checked the temperature...can anybody recommend me a program or a widget for dashboard?

 

[Crazy Badger]

iStat

 

[Candlelight]

I did it with Sierra and it worked perfectly.

High Sierra has already killed Final Cut Studio 3 (which I was told wasn't gonna happen until 10.14) and I currently have no sound on Firefox when I'm on YouTube.

Will probably have to roll mine back.