Manzana advertisement iOS 17 in early June, the next major version of its operating system for the iPhone. Although the update won’t roll out to all users until later this year, the company made an unusual move by making it the developer beta version is available for anyone to download and install.
As it explains Slash GeariOS 17 brings some new features and improvements to the iPhone, most notably the ability to turn your phone into a small smart display, live transcriptions of voice messages, personalized contact cards, the ability to leave someone a FaceTime video message and much more.
However, there are very good reasons to avoid installing the beta version, at least for now, if you are not a developer.
The beta has bugs
All beta software has bugs. It’s still being refined, and those who have access to it are helping the company solve problems by finding and reporting them. Many bugs are small in nature and are quickly fixed in subsequent updates.
Sometimes the bugs will be significant, and when it comes to the iPhone, that could include things like rapid battery drain, frequently missed calls, repeated app crashes, inability to reliably connect to Wi-Fi and other annoyances.
If you own more than one iPhone, then installing iOS 17 won’t be a big problem: you’ll just need to install it on the device you don’t use on a daily basis. However, if you only own an iPhone that is used for making calls and managing your daily life, you are taking a big risk by installing the iOS 17 developer beta.
A serious bug could make your phone difficult or impossible to use until Apple implements a fix, and depending on the problem and the priority you have, that could take days at best.