First, yes… I know you’re taking your chances when you install a beta OS on your primary device. As it happens, I was willing to take that chance with the macOS 27 Developer Beta on my primary Mac, because a) I had heard (and have seen myself) that it is very stable for a beta OS, and b) the Liquid Glass UI nonsense in macOS 26 was so bad that I was willing to risk running unstable software to get away from it.
And so, I have been running the macOS 27 Developer Beta for the past month, with very few problems. Oh, definitely not no problems. With an earlier build, Final Cut Pro — one of Apple’s own apps — was an absolute crash fest. In the process of editing a fairly simple video, I had it crash at least two hundred times in a single day. Fortunately, Final Cut is constantly saving your work, so I never lost a single bit of my project through all of those crashes… although it was definitely challenge to keep my ADHD brain focused to remember what it was I had just been working on 5 seconds ago.
The whole purpose of a Developer Beta OS is for developers to test their software against the new OS and see if there are any bugs they need to fix. I’m pleased to say, Apple’s own Final Cut team is certainly doing that, and with the latest beta, Final Cut seems to be back to its usual rock-solid stability.
Now granted, it may not technically be the purpose of a Developer Beta for users to test third-party developers’ software against the new version of the OS, but guess what… it’s gonna happen.
There are a couple of apps I rely on constantly throughout my workday, both of which have exhibited a couple of bugs with the new OS. They’re not showstoppers, just minor inconveniences.
I don’t want to name the companies, but let’s just say, one is a relative newcomer, building a client app for Gmail. The other is one of the most storied indie Mac development companies around, and I’ve been using their FTP client for literal decades. But frankly, they seem a lot more interested in their bright yellow handheld video game device than in supporting their crusty old Mac software at this point.
I submitted bug reports to the two companies a day or two ago, and I received responses from both of them within a half hour of each other today.
The mail client company thanked me for submitting my bug report, and let me know that there was already an update available that should fix the issue. I ran it, and it does.
The FTP client company sent me a cursory response linking to an FAQ page on their website that basically says, “hey dumb-dumb, don’t complain to us if things don’t work when you’re stupid enough to be running a beta OS.” OK, it maybe wasn’t quite that mean-spirited, but it felt that way.
Here’s the thing… maybe neither of these companies really wants or expects user feedback during the Developer Beta period, since they are — or at least should be — conducting their own extensive testing of their apps with the beta OS. But when they get that feedback, they should at least have the courtesy to feign appreciation, rather than assuming the worst about their own user base and dismissing their very legitimate concerns that bugs in an app that’s critical to their workflow may not be resolved before the final OS release.
Honestly, at this point I would have long since given up on that company’s FTP client, but sadly, the market for FTP clients is pretty slim. What am I supposed to use, Filezilla? Yuck. At least this is, in John Gruber’s words, a “Mac-assed app,” even if it’s buggy and feeling a bit neglected these days. Kind of like me.