What are "public beta" releases?
It is common practice for Apple, Google, and other software providers to issue pre-release "beta" software publicly for testing, particularly for their flagship operating systems (OS), iOS and Android.
They do this well in advance of making the new versions available to the general public in order to get experience with the new software "out in the wild" and gather feedback on performance, bugs, and so on. They also do this to provide companies like Circle the opportunity to get ready for when that software is generally available.
These beta software releases are by definition unfinished pieces of software. The goal in releasing early versions like this is to make sure it's ready for general availability, so it's possible that parts of the experience are still severely broken. By releasing early to a small group like this, the OS providers have the opportunity to find the issues that didn't surface during internal testing.
Many people outside of the developer community like to join these public betas as well for personal reasons, but because betas are not official releases, we at Circle do not support our applications on those beta OS versions.
What to do if you still want to use beta software with Circle
We get it. Sometimes the pull to use the newest offering from Apple is too strong to resist, even if the official release date is still months away. Here's what you can expect from Circle:
- We would love to hear about what you are experiencing. Don't hesitate to write us up and let us know what seems broken.
- We won't be able to provide you with effective troubleshooting for issues that go deeper than what is already known.
- Our Customer Support agents are instructed not to provide in-depth support for beta software (even our own!).
- If the issue that you are seeing shows up on both the beta software AND the publicly available software, we definitely want to hear about this. It's likely not related to the beta at all, and we'd love to work with you here.