OS X Beta Seed Program

Undo command, for those wondering:

sudo /usr/sbin/softwareupdate --clear-catalog

Yeah, this makes me so happy that I am not in the App Store right now. But for the same reason, I have to assume that this will only be relatively late-stage betas — encouraging ordinary schmoes to install known-unstable versions of your OS is a recipe for bad PR no matter how many caveats you throw at them.

I'd rather have that problem than one that requires you go backwards:

"I can't believe x app doesn't run on <ancient android version>"

The new part is that it doesn't require a membership to the Mac Dev Program, but is open to everyone with a free Apple Account.

> Also, does anyone know how security updates are handled? Would suck to be stuck on an unpatched beta while gotofail/heartbleed/Security Update 2014-002 type bugs are in the wild.

This is a new program, so there may be a change in how quickly seeds are distributed, but in the Mac Developer Program, typically the appropriate security update showed up in the next pre-release seed: it could either be the same day if the stars align, or sometimes up to two weeks.

Lately, they've been pushing out pre-release seeds every couple of days, though. Nevertheless, running pre-release software is definitely "at your own risk."

> I'm curious how serious they intend to be about the NDA-ish section

These terms are standard for all the Apple developer programs. In practice, they have been largely unenforced due to the definition they use for Confidential Information:

> Information that otherwise would be deemed Confidential Information but (a) is generally and legitimately available to the public through no fault or breach of yours, (b) is generally made available to the public by Apple, (c) is independently developed by you without the use of any Confidential Information, (d) was rightfully obtained from a third party who had the right to transfer or disclose it to you without limitation, or (e) any third party software and/or documentation provided to you by Apple and accompanied by licensing terms that do not impose confidentiality obligations on the use or disclosure of such software and/or documentation will not be considered Confidential Information under this Agreement.

Clause (a) generally protects anything interesting to talk about, because all the rumor mill sites have full run-downs within a few hours of release. Very rare and circumstantial cases aside[1], publishing the contents of pre-release software on such sites has been considered well within legitimate public interest.

[1]: The most recent case I can think of where Apple was able to go after a rumor mill site for divulging trade secrets (and, more importantly, have it stick) was the when they got Think Secret to shut down in a settlement related to its leaking of the original Mac mini.

Pretty sure it will be hidden in the EULA or TOS.

For diagnosing any bugs with Location Services, I'd presume.

It's a beta build after all...

It's probably because iOS betas attract a lot of non-devs. OS X market share is pretty low compared to iOS.

I suspect it's because iOS devices feel far more disposable than ones main work computer. By that I don't mean in a product design sense, but in a data loss sense. People are used to the idea that their phone might lose their contacts, or some other important data, and therefore keep them well backed up (iTunes even has a utility to do this). With peoples main computer though, the possibility of something going wrong seems far more dangerous, even if the probability is similar. People often back up their main machine far less often, and care more about the data on it.

I might be wrong, but I think I read somewhere that Apple would reject submissions to the app stores that were built on beta systems.

If I'm right, that would explain a lack of uptake on the betas for developers, since that would be a bit of a dealbreaker unless you are juggling multiple macs daily.

That's the same seed offered on the paid side.

You need to be a paying OS X dev member to access the seeds on developer.apple.com.

Depends on the update but the early betas have noticeable problems and crashes, in my roommates experience. Plus, wiping the hard drive and doing a clean install of the final new OS can be a pain

I just updated and noticed no changes. Seems to be very stable so far.

Later betas are usually pretty solid. Early betas are usually absurd messes - iOS7 beta 1 was, IMO, nearly unusable.

I wouldn't let any early Apple beta anywhere near a critical production device.

My hope is that these will be a bit more stable than a typical apple beta since it's public. Many of the early betas for iOS feel like alpha quality because they're being shipped out to developers who aren't supposed to use them on a primary device (even though we do). They remind you to make a backup, but are probably (hopefully) operating under the assumption that people are going to be installing them on their main machines.

High CPU in kernel_task means one of your CPU cores is being force-idled because the computer is too hot or the wrong charger is being used. It's not a bug.

(There could be bugs causing excessive CPU/GPU usage heating up the machine. This is the kind of thing you'd want to report!)

It's in the Frequently Asked Questions.

may the FAQ be with you.

»How do I leave the OS X Beta Seed Program? To leave the program, visit the Leave Program page and follow the instructions to remove your Apple ID and your computers from the OS X Beta Seed Program. This will stop pre-release updates from appearing in the Mac App Store on your computers.« – https://appleseed.apple.com/sp/betaprogram/faq

Got a feeling the "backup your mac with Time Machine" step is a good sign of how you'll have to uninstall it.

Do an erase and install using OSX Recovery. The built in partition should download a released version of the OS and not a beta version.

If you're running into a major bug on the current release, it's nice to try out the next point release to see if it's fixed.

Who says this won't give you access to major releases? To me, that's why this is so interesting with WWDC in a month and a half. Could they be preparing to release changes to OS X that are large enough to warrant the opening of beta testing to the public?

I agree, but point releases can occasionally have new features. 10.9.3 apparently enables 60 Hz 4k output on late 2013 macbook pros. 10.9.2 is limited to 30 Hz which apparently feels very laggy.