About a month ago, Apple started beta testing watchOS 5, iOS 12, macOS 10.14 Mojave and tvOS 12. During the Cupertino-based firm’s earnings call for the last quarter yesterday afternoon, CEO Tim Cook provided more information about exactly how many users are taking part in the beta testing phase this year.
Apple makes the macOS, iOS and tvOS beta versions available both to developers and public beta tests, but it only releases the watchOS beta versions to developer testers.
Cook yesterday (31 July) revealed that more than four million individuals are currently testing the beta versions of these four operating systems combined. He, unfortunately, failed to break down these numbers into the user totals for each individual platform, but it is probably a good bet to accept that iOS enjoys the biggest share of those four million beta testers.
Cook went on to say that in June this year, the firm presented a hugely successful developers conference [the annual WWDC, which this year took place from 4-8 June in San Jose, California] where all the major advances planned for the company’s four operating systems (iOS, watchOS, macOS and tvOS) were previewed.
He went on to say: “Customer and developer reaction has been very positive, and we have over four million users participating in our new OS beta programs.”
Apple initially began providing beta versions of iOS for public testing in 2015 in an attempt to further help prevent bugs from finding their way into the final version. Getting four million individuals to take the risk of installing beta versions on their devices is undoubtedly an impressive achievement by Apple, and emphasises exactly how popular the company’s future software releases really are.