The Summer of Betas

It’s the summer (at least here in the Northern Hemisphere) and that means it is time for Apple software betas!

For many years, Apple has run a Public Beta program, giving non-developer nerds access to the new versions of macOS, iOS and tvOS.

Installing these betas is easy. After logging into Apple’s site, you’ll download a certificate that allows your device to download the latest and greatest.

Preparing for the betas is a little more work. While going back to the non-public version of iOS or macOS isn’t always easy — or even possible — it’s still important to have a backup of your data, and to have as much of it synced to services like iCloud as possible.

For an iOS device, I will run iCloud backup on the beta OS, but I’ll make a backup using iTunes to have in cold storage if I need it later.

On the Mac, I generally run the betas on an external SSD, leaving the stable OS and all of my data safe and sound on my laptop’s internal drive.…