Get iOS 11, High Sierra, and tvOS

Try out the public beta versions of Apple’s latest operating systems today

REQUIRES

A Mac that meets macOS Sierra’s requirements (see bit.ly/sierrareqs). See following pages for iOS 11 and tvOS system requirements.

you will learn

How to sign up for and install Apple’s public betas of macOS, iOS and tvOS.

IT WILL TAKE

At least an hour

Apple has made public beta versions of this year’s system upgrades available for you to try. Why would you want to run a version that’s likely to contain a few bugs? Aside from being helpful to Apple, you might want to check whether any of the apps or accessories you depend upon have any showstopping incompatibilities. It’s wise to do that as early as possible if you plan to buy a new device that’ll come with one of these systems preinstalled.

The method of trying out High Sierra we present on these two pages makes it easy to switch back and forth between it and your working system.

Things are more involved on iOS in particular, mostly due to the time it takes to download the latest non-beta version, erase your device to install it, and restore a backup.

The key thing to remember to do on macOS and iOS is to make a full backup of your device immediately before installing. Backups made on iOS 11 will be worthless to you if you later roll back to iOS 10. And on macOS, Apple’s advised method is to back up using Time Machine. However, restoring your entire Mac from Time Machine’s backups is a disruptive and slow process, so we recommend another route that requires a second drive; it takes longer upfront, but it saves you stress if you run into a big problem.

In order to try any (or all) of the public betas, start by following the three steps below to sign up for Apple’s public beta program. Should you want to roll back to your non-beta system, see Apple’s guides at