Public betas of MacOS, iPadOS, tvOS 13 and iOS 13 are now available

Apple has released its first wave of public beta builds of the latest versions of their operating systems through the Apple Beta Software Program.

iOS 13 Dark ModeThe biggest changes in these new Apple OS versions go to the iPhone and iPad. iOS 13 brings Dark Mode, updated photo controls and a much needed redesign to the photos app. It also brings swipe functionality to the stock keyboard and Memoji additions and stickers.

For iPadOS, in addition to the updates listed previously, you can now pin Today View widgets to the Home Screen, which is a much smarter use of the real estate on the iPad screen. You can also use a feature called Sidecar when paired with a MacBook that is running Catalina. This allows you to use your iPad as a second screen even extending the touch and Pencil functionality.

I do not have access to an Apple TV, so I cannot test tvOS. The MacBook Pro I use is not supported for macOS Catalina. I did install macOS Mojave on this unsupported MacBook Pro. I’m waiting to see if another workaround will be released later in the year that will allow me to install macOS Catalina. 

I have been running the developer beta builds on an iPhone XS and iPad Pro 10.5 without much issue over these past couple of weeks. Don’t get me wrong… it has been buggy. There have been a handful of times where my only option was to reboot the phone or tablet, but while that hasn’t happened all that often, it has happened. That said, proceed with caution if you are thinking about installing the public beta build.