The First Apple Intelligence Beta

> The dual beta track proves irrefutably that Apple’s annual release schedule is irreparably broken and desperately needs to be abolished.

I mean, that's just straight-up not going to happen, at least for iOS. There is a 0% probability that they will release new iPhone flagship models without a corresponding major version of iOS. None.

And the annual release schedule isn't even the problem, at least as far as new features are concerned, nor is having dual beta tracks. The issue is communication and making it clear that when they say "iOS 18" they may in certain cases mean sometime between September 2024 and June 2025. There's no reason they shouldn't be allowed to ship new features in minor version releases, but they have to be clear in their announcements if that's their intention. Then nobody has any room to complain.

IOW they need to stop overpromising for the .0 release.

@Kevin I think it’s not primarily about overpromising for the .0. The first problem is that they can’t help but introduce a certain number of new features in each release, and that’s always more than they can deliver within a year while still cleaning up bugs from the previous release. And, second, this is exacerbated with new features being introduced so deep into the cycle because then more things get broken later in the year, so we don’t even get a trend of continually increasing quality until the next release.

IOW, they are either promising too much for the release as a whole or not giving themselves enough time to deliver it.

@kevin,
I think you’re overestimating the number of people that are swayed by OS updates. I’m pretty into this stuff and I’m hard pressed to tell you what version of iOS my phone is running.

> The dual beta track proves irrefutably that Apple’s annual release schedule is irreparably broken and desperately needs to be abolished.

Huh?

I mean… arguably, “beta” is a misnomer. Many of these pre-releases aren’t even feature-complete and therefore alpha.

But, that’s neither here nor there. Apple has multiple tracks because they work on multiple release branches. Getting rid of the annual schedule would, if anything, further complicate this.

Really not clear to me what Jeff is getting at. “Should Apple make their schedule less tight and thereby allow for more stable releases” is a good question. I just don’t see any relation at all to this 18.1 beta. The 18.1 beta means that 18.0 is reaching stability (at least, enough so that the iPhone 15 can start shipping in a build somewhere around here), and that features that didn’t make the cut are now coming to 18.1 instead. That’s _good_ release management, surely.

@ Chris: yes, but a sizeable portion will buy due to a signature feature or two.

Of course, this year, that signature feature may be “AI”, which unfortunately won’t make the cut at all for the .0.

Makes me wonder how they’ll market the iPhone 16. What’s the big new thing that also actually exists from day one?

> The first problem is that they can’t help but introduce a certain number of new features in each release, and that’s always more than they can deliver within a year while still cleaning up bugs from the previous release. And, second, this is exacerbated with new features being introduced so deep into the cycle because then more things get broken later in the year, so we don’t even get a trend of continually increasing quality until the next release.

And worse, they sometimes make architectural changes in a .x release, perhaps as a back port, or something that didn’t make it to .0. This further destabilizes that cycle.

> I mean… arguably, “beta” is a misnomer. Many of these pre-releases aren’t even feature-complete and therefore alpha.

It doesn't matter what they call it.

> Apple has multiple tracks because they work on multiple release branches.

Apple can work on as many branches as they want internally, because they have thousands of engineers. But releasing multiple branches externally is a different matter. As a software developer myself, I have no idea what to do with the multiple beta tracks. I don't have enough time or devices to test both. So which track am I supposed to follow? The whole point of releasing betas is to have people test them externally, but now that situation is a total mess.

> The 18.1 beta means that 18.0 is reaching stability

18.0 is no more stable in July than previous years' betas were.

Anyway, it's not clear why new iPhones even need new major iOS versions. I remember back when Macs transitioned from PowerPC to Intel, that occurred in an otherwise minor update, Mac OS X 10.4.4. You might claim that new iOS features sell new iPhones, but if the new features don't actually make it into the new iOS version when the new iPhones go on sale in September, then there's no selling point, counter to the argument.

@Sören I’m with Jeff that multiple tracks are not good for external developers. It seems like it doubles the testing load and implies that they’re not going to fix more stuff in the .0 release even though it’s probably 6 weeks or so from shipping.

Version numbers are not supposed to be about marketing. They're supposed to guarantee that your 3rd party software doesn't break, and the OS' APIs don't change. Yet Apple now makes breaking changes like removing python 2.7 in 12.3.

So why were major version numbers invented? Because developers need to tell their customers "This app works on MacOS 15". Not "This app works on MacOS 15.4, 15.5, 15.7, 15.9,and 15.11 only". But Apple doesn't seem to care about such pesky details anymore.

We're living in the post-modern world, where objective reality isn't a thing, only people's feelings and fantasies are. Large Language Models fit right into that world, because if facts don't matter, nothing is a confabulation... and we can call the results "Apple Intelligence", which sounds cool.

The 18.1 betas are only available for devices that support Apple Intelligence.

The release similarly mention only Apple Intelligence features as the singular item that’s changed from 18.0 beta 4.

All of which leads me to believe that the 18.1 currently is otherwise identical to the latest 18.0 beta, but with some of the Apple Intelligence changes and additions enabled.

So this isn’t really representative of a separate overall release track, per se, or even a hint at what might ultimately be fixed in 18.1 but not 18.0. The motivation is likely that:

1. Apple Intelligence features are significant enough that they want to give them an extended beta period.

2. Apple Intelligence features aren’t ready enough to launch in September with the .0

3. Apple doesn’t want to confuse or mislead anyone by including these features in the 18.0 betas knowing that they will not be included in the final 18.0 release.

Which when taken all together seems reasonable to me.

But the fact that no one at Apple Dev Relations is able to just come out and state this plainly, or even frame the situation in any way, is pretty damning regarding their communications approach with developers.

@Wes They fixed the link to the macOS 15.1 release notes. The notes do not mention Apple Intelligence or the M1 system requirement and do mention a fix (to SIP) that is not in the current 15.0 beta. So, yes, terrible communication, and the branches do seem to be diverging.