In order to prevent future operating systems from having bugs at launch, Apple is preparing to launch a public beta system for iOS.

Touted as a massive overhaul to Apple’s iOS operating system, iOS 8 was meant to bring new health and fitness features to users of Apple’s mobile devices. With apps like Healthbook that collected data from all health related apps and could even push that information towards your doctor, many people were excited to download it upon release.

However, the launch didn’t quite go to plan and iOS 8 was plagued with bugs that weren’t solved for almost an entire fortnight. Particularly troublesome issues including the loss of the text or call function on some iPhones that had iOS 8 installed. This was tremendously embarrassing for Apple, who had talked up a storm about iOS 8 prior to release and so to prevent these launch issues in future, the Cupertino, Calif. company is reportedly looking to launch a public beta program for iOS.

The decision to roll out a public beta program follows a launch of the public beta for OS X Yosemite on Mac which was released in October, 2014. That was successful and saw Yosemite released without many big issues. Although 1 million people were able to test Yosemite, reports suggest that just 100,000 people will be able to take part of the first iOS beta – for iOS 8.3 – in March. That decision has been made to keep a “high level of exclusivity” and so the number of people allowed in is unlikely to change with the public beta for iOS 9. This makes sense given that iOS betas are usually only available for developers who pay $99 a year for the privilege.

On top of bug busting, Apple is also hoping that this will reduce the demand of unauthorised releases of iOS beta builds. It’s been a common problem for Apple in the past that people would pay for developer accounts but then sell iOS beta builds to the masses. Given that iOS beta builds are technically a work in progress, it’s no wonder why Apple wouldn’t want them floating around.

There are currently no details on how to get into the iOS public beta but we’ll keep you posted once we know more.

Source: 9to5Mac

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