Try out the iOS 11 public beta

Take the new Control Center, better iPad multitasking, and more for a spin

REQUIRES

iPhone 5s, SE, 6, 6s, or 7, iPad mini 2 or later, iPad Air or later, iPad Pro (any model), or an iPod touch (6th generation)

you will learn

How to prepare your device and data, and then install the iOS 11 beta.

IT WILL TAKE

At least an hour

Installing the public beta of iOS 11 is straightforward, though it’s best if you use a device you don’t depend on from day to day – say, to check your bank account and pay your bills.

You can restore your device to iOS 10 if you want – or at least you can for a short time after the final public release of iOS 11 drops, though Apple doesn’t say exactly when that will be.

If you decide iOS 11 isn’t for you, make sure you roll back as soon as you can spare the time to do so. Note that the process takes longer to complete than simply telling your Mac to switch from starting up High Sierra from one partition to using your previous system on another.

As always with a big software update, the first thing you should do is make a backup of your device. On iOS, you might already be doing this using one of two methods: using iOS’s iCloud Backup feature, which backs up automatically when your device is locked, on Wi-Fi, and connected to a power source; or using the device backup capability of iTunes on your Mac, located on a device’s summary page.