General Is the Apple public beta program useful?

[Blue Hawk]

I remember the first time. When Apple made the betas available for the public. It was a great idea. You where able to test and report bugs and problems with the feedback app. After 1-2 beta updates you have always get an answer for a few bug reports and they have really fixed them.

But since a few years it's like that Apple doesn't even care about the feedbacks from us. Two times I've got answers from bugs I have reported a few years ago. They weren't even fixed.
Sometimes I've got messages about that they where closing my reports without doing something.
And since a year, maybe two, I'm not even getting an answer from them about my reports. They are not even fixing bugs we (a lot of people here in the forum too) are reporting them since years. Sometimes the betas get new bugs, we are reporting them, and Apple doesn't even fix them all. I'm not reporting much. Maybe 2-3 bugs in one beta and I'm not always testing.

Is it only me or do you also think that Apple doesn't care about our feedbacks? Is it still worth to test the betas and report them bugs?

 

[nortonandreev]

I agree with you, they don’t seem to care about feedback and about user experience in general. The only think I can see betas be useful for is the usage information and error logs that are being sent in the background. I hope that they do something with this information at least.

 

[TimFL1]

They absolutely care about feedback, but you're just an average joe hopping on the beta program next to a few million more average joes, all (most likely) reporting the same issue. I reported quite a lot of issues, only ever got feedback from more obscure bug reports I made (and never for the "known" issues).

I'm sure they see your "volume HUD revamp please" feedback, but they probably don't respond to it cause there are 50k duplicate feedback entries asking for a new volume HUD.

It was easier getting an answer back when they launched the program (and it was invite only), but nowadays it's open to the public + the dozens of people who get a developer profile for quicker updates make it almost impossible to respond to everyone.

 

[Dougteeshot]

I remember the first time. When Apple made the betas available for the public. It was a great idea. You where able to test and report bugs and problems with the feedback app. After 1-2 beta updates you have always get an answer for a few bug reports and they have really fixed them.

But since a few years it's like that Apple doesn't even care about the feedbacks from us. Two times I've got answers from bugs I have reported a few years ago. They weren't even fixed.
Sometimes I've got messages about that they where closing my reports without doing something.
And since a year, maybe two, I'm not even getting an answer from them about my reports. They are not even fixing bugs we (a lot of people here in the forum too) are reporting them since years. Sometimes the betas get new bugs, we are reporting them, and Apple doesn't even fix them all. I'm not reporting much. Maybe 2-3 bugs in one beta and I'm not always testing.

Is it only me or do you also think that Apple doesn't care about our feedbacks? Is it still worth to test the betas and report them bugs?

Federighi did say on the Talk Show (John Gruber) in 2016 that all the incoming Radar’s do get read by the engineers responsible for that part of the operating system, but they currently have issues (admittedly) about communicating to the end user what they plan on doing with that bug. He also said that some bugs that they are investigating could be linked to another bug, and spending time fixing that bug first. On top of that, he said that the Feedback app is extremely useful to the engineers because end users are sending all the appropriate logs (sysdiagnose, stackshot logs for performance issues, etc), which gives all the information they need. To be fair, I’ve reported 970 bugs since 2015, and I’ve received replies to close to 200 of them. Lot of which were duplicates, others asking me to test a future build to see if it’s in fact fixed. The best way is to keep reporting them, because as the “bug count” goes up for a particular bug, it gets a higher priority to fix sooner than the others.

 

[StellarVixen]

It is nothing to write home about, but removing it is not gonna help the cause either. I want it to stay, while we can hope for improvement.

 

[AppleHaterLover]

Do you expect na individual response for each and every single one of your bug reports?

 

[Dougteeshot]

Federighi did say on the Talk Show (John Gruber) in 2016 that all the incoming Radar’s do get read by the engineers responsible for that part of the operating system, but they currently have issues (admittedly) about communicating to the end user what they plan on doing with that bug. He also said that some bugs that they are investigating could be linked to another bug, and spending time fixing that bug first. On top of that, he said that the Feedback app is extremely useful to the engineers because end users are sending all the appropriate logs (sysdiagnose, stackshot logs for performance issues, etc), which gives all the information they need. To be fair, I’ve reported 970 bugs since 2015, and I’ve received replies to close to 200 of them. Lot of which were duplicates, others asking me to test a future build to see if it’s in fact fixed. The best way is to keep reporting them, because as the “bug count” goes up for a particular bug, it gets a higher priority to fix sooner than the others.

Here is the podcast I’m taking about above. It’s the last question Gruber asks at the end. Just knowing that every report does get read is enough for me to keep filing bugs. Besides, having an impact on future software from Apple by filing these bug reports is a pretty cool gig to have.

https://daringfireball.net/thetalkshow/2016/02/12/ep-146

 

[jeffe]

https://www.corbinstreehouse.com/blog/2019/03/the-sad-state-of-logging-bugs-for-apple/

 

[ChrisA]

Betas are not useful to end users but are VERY much needed by any developer. How else to know if your app will work on the next macOS release but to try the Beta?

 

[mmomega]

If you enjoy having more buggy than normal software, it is useful.
If you enjoy finding and reporting bugs in software, it is useful.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

The principle purpose of a public beta is to increase the number of users and hardware/software configurations using the software prior to public release. It's the old monkeys-pounding-on-keyboards scenario. More bugs found now, fewer to be found later. It's more a matter of getting massive quantities of automated crash reports, less a matter of getting carefully-crafted manual bug reports.

Most of what will be learned in this experiment will come back to Apple as automated crash reports. Why? Only a small fraction of public beta testers are likely to create a truly useful bug report. Some because they simply can't spare the time, others because they lack the skills to adequately communicate and/or document the incident.

The developer beta is likely to generate a far higher number of useful manually-created reports per-capita - engineers know what their fellow engineers need to know, they know how to communicate it, and the success of their own products depends on getting these things fixed.

Would it be nice to get more love from Apple for participating in the public beta? Sure, but how many of us get all the love we want from life? For the most part, we need to find our own satisfactions.

I could be wrong, but most public beta testers seem to be far more interested in being part of an in-group and/or trying out the new features than in helping to improve the product. I don't think Apple needs to show those testers any special appreciation. However, those who do take the time to file quality reports? Maybe some token of appreciation would be in order; the trick is in creating a system that doesn't reward the filing of poor/meaningless reports just to game the rewards system.

If you get no satisfaction from beta (and you have no business purpose for participating), then it's just not for you. Some people love doing a daily workout, to other's it's just plain work.