Apple's WWDC is rolling on with betas now available for download, but if you use your Mac, iPhone, or iPad for anything else than development, you should wait.

As is tradition for WWDC, following the keynote detailing the changes Apple is making in its fall operating system updates, the first developer betas have been made available.

The first developer builds of iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27, tvOS 27, visionOS 27, and watchOS 27 are now downloadable. They can be installed onto devices for testing right now by anyone interested in them.

The first builds are:

  • iOS 27 beta 1 is 24A5355q
  • iPadOS 27 beta 1 is 24A5355q
  • macOS 27 beta 1 is 26A5353q
  • tvOS 27 beta 1 is 24J5289o
  • visionOS 27 beta 1 is 24M5291p
  • watchOS 27 beta 1 is 24R5289n

For the people reading this that are not developers, do not install the betas. You will eventually be sorry.

We're warning you...

As the name "developer beta" strongly hints, this is a beta intended for developers, not the public. It gives developers an early opportunity to get to grips with the new APIs and features they need to understand and work with, ahead of the full release in the fall.

Since it's a developer beta, it's deemed to be good enough by Apple for developers to work with, but not necessarily for the public. Frequently, this means that features could be buggy, broken, or potentially harmful if things go wrong.

Each WWDC, we get emails asking why we didn't warn them about the perils. We do. Every year.

So take this as the same warning: Don't install the first developer beta unless you have a real reason to do so, and have taken precautions. That is because there is a very real risk that you can cause problems to your hardware or your data.

We recommend that any member of the public wanting to try out Apple's features before they arrive in the fall in their fully-baked state do so with extreme care.

Don't install it onto your primary hardware, such as your daily-use iPhone or Mac. Use a spare device that doesn't have your precious data on it.

Also, it is normally advisable to have backups of your data. It is especially warranted if you play around with the developer betas.

Every year, the AppleInsider editorial team installs the developer betas, because it's part of the job. Also every year, we have to deal with issues of varying degrees of magnitude.

Don't be like us.

Install the developer betas at your own risk. Or, at the very least, wait a few build cycles and try out the eventual public beta instead.