High Sierra beta 9 available for developer testing, one day after last iOS 11 & tvOS 11 update

Apple makes the ninth developer beta of High Sierra available four days after its last update, and one day after iOS 11 and tvOS 11 releases.

The macOS High Sierra update, with build number 17A360a, contains a number improvements like Apple File System integration, migration from H.264 to H.265, and Metal 2, alongside other refinements. The previous beta sported build number 17A358a.

There are no specific changes listed in the release notes for this most recent update, versus the last one from Monday. Apple released ninth betas of iOS 11 and tvOS 11 on Thursday had similarly small increments in build numbers, and also had no noted changes in the accompanying release notes.

While Apple has made a great deal of progress with eGPU support, including niceties like clamshell mode working properly and logout when the Thunderbolt 3 cable is unplugged in use, rather than a crash, it is not slated to be included in the fall release of High Sierra. Apple's inclusion of the technology allowing Thunderbolt 3 PCI-E enclosures with a GPU installed to connect, and accelerate, graphics in High Sierra will come at at some point in the spring of 2018.

Earlier on Thursday, Apple declared that its next release event is on September 12. All four of Apple's operating systems in testing are expected to be released on or around the release event, with the a 4K Apple TV, plus the "iPhone 8," "iPhone 7s," and "iPhone 7s Plus" likely debuting as well.

6 Comments

timrand 23 comments · 10 Years

About 7 years ago

Now available for Public Beta participants.

Soli 9981 comments · 9 Years

timrand said:

Now available for Public Beta participants.

Is that beta 8 becoming a public beta or are you are saying they made beta 9 for devs a public beta on the same day? For the latter, I don't recall them ever doing that before.

dewme 5713 comments · 10 Years

I suspect Apple has adopted a continuous integration (CI) model that allows them to snap off new releases much more quickly than ever before. With CI software releases are no longer the "big deal" event that they used to be. This is a very good thing and demonstrates that they are making very good progress in maturing their software development practices.

foggyhill 4767 comments · 10 Years

dewme said:

I suspect Apple has adopted a continuous integration (CI) model that allows them to snap off new releases much more quickly than ever before. With CI software releases are no longer the "big deal" event that they used to be. This is a very good thing and demonstrates that they are making very good progress in maturing their software development practices.

Well, they still need to lock down changes to part of the code base so a version that's flashed unto the phone is not worked up to the last second in critical areas.
You want to test awhile in those areas and dot your is and just push some bugs in other parts to be solved in a later release.

Some of the code bug reports people do now undoubtably don't get fixed in IOS 11.0 and are pushed to 11.1 unless they're conspicuous.

That's probably why they did the big change the APFS not at IOS 11 but before. That's the kind of thing you prefer is released in software on existing phones than being boxed in millions of phones and were potential bad repercussion would be higher.

I wonder when this kind of branching occurs; seems to be much later than before that's for sure.

shapetables 201 comments · 10 Years

I was going to check this afternoon (because they usually release for Intel platform The Day After their ARM platform release), but thought to myself "no way do they have the balls to release stuff that messes with filesystems the day before a holiday weekend". Well apparently, they're either really really _____ or really really ______. (10 seconds to solve for _______. Go!) :D