Maybe things are different today, but I remember peripherals and sort of chaos could take place until the kinks are worked out.
That still happens in the early betas, but by release there are seldom any major
surprises for several reasons:
- The OS X/MacOS kernel has become far more robust.
- Many security features such as sandboxing not only protect against intentional malefactors they also serve to isolate and protect the system from unintentional coding problems.
- Developers who were/are geared to Microsoft's multi-year development cycle have learned that Apple is dedicated to their annual upgrade cycle and have adjusted their development schedules to keep pace
- Apple's Public Beta program exposes new upgrades and updates to a much larger combination of hardware and software configurations than is possible in a controlled laboratory setting so many more problems are identified and fixed before a release goes public.
- To support the Public Beta program Apple has developed a reasonably sophisticated problem report and documentation package that is installed on the device being tested and a matching system on their serviers to colect and analyze the problem reports that are received.
- Apple has learned to give developers and users PLENTY of advanced notice of changes that will definitely effect third party software. For example developers have had two full years warning that in MacOS 10.15 that will launch in the fall of this year (2019) all 32 bit APIs will be withdrawn (ie. applications written using those APIs will no longer run).
- The App Store marketing and distribution mechanism allows Apple to enforce develppers to follow approved development standards resulting in more stable third party software
- Apple gives developers a FREE software development environment including Apple's own SWIFT programming language that is easy to learn and structured to encourage good software development techniques
Don't misunderstand, the system is not perfect. For example the High Sierra beta broke SoftRAID that I use for one of my Time Machine "drives" and it took a couple of months for OWC to get a functional SoftRAID beta out that would work under High Sierra. Some developers are reluctant to develop or even test their software until it is officially released, but that appears to be a shrinking number either because they realize time and Apple will wait for no developer or they leave the market altogether because they have been supplanted by more aggressive competitors or by enhancements/new features in MacOS.
One thing I have learned as an inveterate MacOS beta tester is that it is absolutely essential to keep third party applications scrupulously up to date and in fact, where available, I often use application betas just to be sure everything is as current as possible. Any significant glitches encountered in the first public beta are usually fixed by the second public beta that typically comes out three to four weeks later. After that the glitches tend to become more obscure and even more new features are added. One final caveat, not everything that is in the final public beta before a release makes it into the first release so occasionally a minor feature in the final public beta will not appear in the actual release, which income cases can be annoying.
