Why I Won’t Go All-in on the iOS Beta Again

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Last month, I explained why everyone should think very carefully about jumping into Apple’s public beta program.

It’s lovely that Tim gives us mere mortals the chance to play with his forthcoming OS releases, but it’s also potentially one of the most stupid things you can do with your most precious devices.

I’ve been running the public betas of macOS, iPadOS, and iOS for the last few weeks, and while the former two have played a relatively small role in my day-to-day tasks, iOS 16 has been running on my daily driver – the iPhone 13 mini.

This has been a big, stupid mistake.

My experience with the public beta of iOS 16 has indeed been pretty horrible, and it all came to a head during last week’s holiday.

Bricked

If you think I’m overblowing the public beta thing (I’ve even had one commenter suggest that the beta releases are as good as final these days), you clearly haven’t run into a beta-related real-world problem yet.

Last week, we were on holiday in Jersey. It was unfamiliar territory for everyone in our party, which meant we relied constantly on sat nav to make our way around the island. I only use my phone for navigation these days, and Apple Maps and Google Maps do a superb job in conjunction with CarPlay.

That is until your phone steadfastly refuses to work. At all.

Last week, my iPhone 13 mini stopped responding to touch input – right before we were about to head out for the day. The screen turned on, but no finger taps were registered. Worse still, our car didn’t recognise it at all once connected via Lightning, and a hard reset (which now requires a 9,172 button press combination that can only be identified via a Google search – thanks, Apple) made no difference.

Thankfully, we had another iPhone to hand. But this still left me with a completely bricked iPhone for a few days (it magically started working again overnight – you know, right when it wasn’t required).

Even worse still, my iPhone then refused to charge properly for the rest of the holiday. It was either intermittent or didn’t work at all, leading to several occasions where I had no choice but to let the battery drain and be without my primary phone number.

This wasn’t end-of-the-world stuff, and I’m lucky enough to have a second phone with me these days, but in another situation, and during a far more important trip somewhere, it could have been incredibly troublesome.

Battery life, feel, and app compatibility

I wrote recently about the sad demise of my iPhone 13 mini’s battery life. It still pains me to talk about it, but I’m afraid I have to raise the matter again today.

The poor battery performance started before the beta test, but it has got a whole lot worse since installing iOS 16.

I can say this confidently because the phone has been running far hotter than normal. Even the lightest of tasks often results in a toasty rear of the device, and it’s fair to assume that the increased effort is having a detrimental impact on battery consumption.

Now, granted, I may have a battery issue here – that’s entirely possible. But having used iOS public betas in the past, I know this is a pretty common trade-off when trying out pre-release versions. It’s understandable, too – Apple’s engineers are still figuring out how to optimise everything.

This constant optimisation and bug fixing can be felt throughout iOS 16. The most recent update (20A5349b, for those who are interested) feels far more stable, but up until now, the public beta has felt pretty rough on my iPhone 13 mini. It has juddered, stuttered, reset itself, and resulted in several of my most-used apps crashing – hard. Ironically, one of the worst culprits has been Apple Music, which has been practically unusable during the entire beta test.

I love trying out new stuff, and I was genuinely excited about iOS 16, but I’d forgotten how unsatisfying and unnerving beta software can feel – particularly when you rely on the device so heavily. If nothing else, it removes a lot of the enjoyment from using your iPhone and reduces the new-toy feel of a new iPhone purchase when the final release hits the shelves later in the year.

There’s also one big issue with iOS 16, which I don’t think that many people are talking about.

The elephant in the room

I love the new Lock Screen in iOS 16. Apple has, quite rightly, placed it front and centre in all of its iOS 16 hype and marketing material. The problem is that the novelty of the Lock Screen soon erodes, and, well, there isn’t much else to get excited about in iOS 16, I’m afraid.

In fact, I’ve just had to call up the iOS 16 preview page on Apple’s website to remind myself of what’s included – that’s how underwhelming it is.

Notifications are still an impenetrable mess. The improvements to Focus Modes are relatively interesting, but I’m yet to find a real-world use for them. I don’t use Messages, so the stuff they’ve done there is completely irrelevant. Improvements to dictation are welcome and genuinely impressive, but I’m still a bit old-fashioned with my input methods.

There are numerous tweaks, security improvements, and continued evolution, but the truth about iOS 16 is that Apple has done very well to divert our attention away from what is a relatively minor iOS release with a fancy new Lock Screen.

Wrap up

Your mileage may vary with Apple’s public betas. Indeed, I’m aware of a few people on my Discord server who haven’t experienced any trouble with their iPhones at all while running iOS 16.

It’s a big risk, though – particularly if you decide to install iOS 16 on your primary (or only) phone. Please proceed with caution.

Beyond my beta woes, I’m afraid iOS 16 is a bit of a damp squib. There’s no seismic leap forward, and while that isn’t a necessity, my experience with Android over the last few months has revealed that Apple’s mobile operating system is becoming a bit stale.

Android feels more alive; more exciting. It’s also more interactive, and pleasingly customisable. It looks far better in most scenarios, too – particularly when it comes to notifications, the lock screen (sorry, Craig), and the implementation of widgets (again, sorry, Craig).

I’m not here to compare Android with iOS (that’s for another day). I’m simply letting you know that I probably won’t dive into iOS 16 quite so wholeheartedly in the future!