Source: Apple
Apple seeded iOS 13 Beta 2 to all developers two weeks ago today, and so far, it’s been a huge improvement over the first beta that released back in the first week of June. I’ve spent 1 week with iOS 13 Beta 2, and I’m surprised with how many improvements there are over the first beta.
Crashing was the biggest fault with me for Beta 1. I’m not talking apps crashing, I’m talking about the actual system crashing and having to be hard rebooted before fixing. One day, even a hard reboot wouldn’t fix it and I had to leave the iPhone battery die before booting the phone up again. The biggest issue that would occur to me is that I would use Face ID, the iPhone would unlock, the animation with the apps floating in would begin and then BAM! That was it. The phone had crashed. What was weird about this is that the screen wouldn’t go dark as you’d expect. Instead, the screen stayed frozen and didn’t move – no matter how hard you tried. I calculated in Beta 1 that my iPhone XR would crash on average about 8-10 times a day, which would make anyone insane. Throughout the last week of Beta 2, my iPhone XR and iPad 9.7” only crashed once. I find that incredibly impressive.
Alongside that, if the phone wasn’t crashing in Beta 1, the apps were. One day I couldn’t open messages because the whole app would crash and reset the springboard. Luckily, I had my Apple Watch to handle messages, but other than that, it was pretty dreadful. Fallout Shelter is one of the games I play most on my iPhone, and I couldn’t play more than 2 minutes without it crashing. Curious as to whether this was an issue with Bethesda games, I downloaded and played the Elder Scrolls Blades, the latest game from Bethesda. I had no issues with that, which leads me to believe that there is something wrong with Fallout Shelter in particular. Beta 2 was a different experience entirely. While Fallout Shelter still crashes, I can play it for about 5-6 minutes before it crashes. In Beta 1, all social media apps crashed repeatedly every time I would open them. In Beta 2, I was able to open them and none of those apps crashed at all. Apple have seriously reduced the amount of crashing in Beta 2. It feels stable now and it feels like the betas you get around the golden release. Yes, there are still a lot of bugs to be squashed, but nowhere near as many as there were in Beta 1.
Battery Life has received a huge improvement in Beta 2 over Beta 1. I could actually go a full day on one single charge, which is totally different to the half-day battery life that I would get with Beta 1. Interestingly, iOS 12.3.1 is the best OS I’ve ever had for Battery Life, rounding in at about two and half days on a single charge. Of course, I am not expecting a beta OS to maintain the same battery life as an already released and tested OS, but it’s interesting to keep that in mind. I’ll have to see what the battery life is like on iOS 13.3 when it comes out around April of 2020! (Just kidding :p)
In terms of performance, I’ve noticed very little difference between Beta 1 and Beta 2. Both were extremely powerful, and Geekbench scores came in at about the same, with Beta 2 just being a little higher in both the single core score and the multi core score. Despite the crashes, the actual performance has been very smooth on both betas, but more so on Beta 2, as would be expected.
In conclusion, I’m really happy with Beta 2. It’s so much better than Beta 1 and is far more stable. Yes, things do still crash and there are still a lot of bugs, but I’m sure as we progress into Beta 3, 4, 5, and all the way up to 10 or 11, we’ll see those bugs and crashes dissipate and become a distant memory. I’m really excited for Apple to release Beta 3 around this time next week, but for the time being, I’m super happy on Beta 2.
If you are considering installing the iOS 13 beta, I wouldn’t recommend it for your personal devices. If you have a spare iPhone lying around that you don’t use anymore – sure, give it a go. On your main iPhone – no way. Or at least not yet. While Beta 2 is a huge improvement over Beta 1, it’s still not stable enough to be used reliably. I rely heavily on my main iPhones and iPads, so I install the betas on secondary devices that I use quite often. But of course, you might be a thrillseeker, so in that case, go ahead! Have a blast! (Just don’t forget to file your bugs using the Feedback app!)
iOS 13 Beta 3 is expected to be arriving today, so we’ll see how that update performs compared to this! Anyways, how have your experiences been with iOS 13 beta 2? Let me know in the comments below!