This is Technology Bytes, episode 68 for June 23rd, 2024.
Technology Bytes is a microcast where I share brief bytes on interesting technology.
My name is Joel.
Enjoy, and here we go.
So this week I’m going to talk about Developer Beta 1.
I think I mentioned last week that WWDC 2024 would give me lots of fodder for this podcast over the next few weeks to months, or my plan on using it to its fullest extent.
But then, as always Apple does, they release the first Developer Beta right after or right at the first day of WWDC.
In the past, you have had to have a developer account to even think about installing that, and I’ve never been that interested in spending money so that I could do that.
But in iOS 17, at least early on, I’m not sure if right at the beginning, but now in iOS 18, you can choose what beta program you want to be involved in.
Do you want to just do the public beta, or would you like to be on the developer beta?
And anyone with any kind of smarts and some wisdom for application would know that unless they’re a developer, or unless they think they’re a developer, I don’t know what the reason would be, but you should stay far away from the first developer beta, because it could be full of holes and issues and bugs that could make your devices very useless.
But of course, all of those things do not describe me, and so I was reading quite a bit about the developer beta, reading about the stability, reading about what some of the issues might be.
There are applications, software that I need to run for my work.
Otherwise, I just can’t do my job.
And for the most part, we are doing web apps.
It’s not necessarily web apps, but it’s just websites.
All of our software is run on a website.
That’s how it’s developed.
And so I’m thinking, well, Safari’s going to run.
I don’t really have an issue with that.
But we also have a VPN that I need to make sure works, because if I can’t get into the VPN, if that doesn’t work on that first beta, then obviously that’s a no starter there.
So I was reading, listening, reading, all these kinds of things, and then I decided, well, I have a number of devices.
I have two computers in my office, the MacBook Air.
I have an iMac.
And then I have my iPad, and I thought I could just start simply.
And in fact, if I start on my phone and I can test the VPN for work on that, and if that works, then I can maybe move to the iPad, although that is my mobile device, and I walk through the production floor on a regular basis with that, always carrying that, because that gives me insight into what is happening with the current product flow.
So I’m like, okay, that has to work.
But if one of the computers on my desk doesn’t work, then I’m probably okay.
Maybe I can even go backwards if I wanted to do that.
So I started with the phone.
Everything went very well.
I didn’t have any issues logging into the VPN.
And so now I’m sitting in my office thinking, I wonder what should happen next.
So anyone listening to this microcast knows what should happen next, and that is nothing.
I should not put it on any devices.
Even though it worked on my phone, I should not put it on my watch because you can’t roll the watch back as far as I know.
I should not put it on any of my devices.
And, of course, I don’t listen to myself, and I don’t listen to wisdom and logic.
And so I go all out.
Everything that I own is updated to the new developer beta 1.
My iMac, my MacBook Air, my iPad Pro, my Apple Watch, my iPhone, my Apple TV, everything that can go to the beta has gone to the beta.
And so that happened.
Let’s see.
Monday was the WWDC keynote.
So I think it probably was Tuesday afternoon.
And all the balance of that week, everything worked very well.
And so then I get to work on Monday, and things are still going well.
And then I go to our second warehouse, which is walking distance, and it’s really the same SSID network, so my iPad really doesn’t know any different.
But all of a sudden, one of the two tools that I use, I cannot get to.
Safari will not load.
It gives me no errors.
It just does not work.
And so I’m on my iPad.
I go back to my office, and both computers are fine.
I log into my phone just to try it there, and nope, the one site, the one tool won’t work on the iPhone either.
So now I’m a little stuck, not sure exactly why it’s happening because, as you know, at this point, my iPad is the mobile device for my work.
So then I load Firefox on my iPad, and it works.
And I don’t know why.
I tried everything in Safari that I could think of to clear the caches, to erase all the history, to do whatever I could think of to make it work.
To no avail.
It just would not run.
So I still have it working on my computers.
I could actually carry my MacBook Air if I had to.
Still trying to decide what to do.
I go home, try it on my own Wi-Fi network, still the same issue, come back the next day, and inadvertently shut down Safari on my iMac.
And when I restart it, the one website tool that I use will not run on my iMac.
It still works on my MacBook Air, but I have not shut Safari down on that device yet.
So now I’m trying to decide what to do.
I could start over.
I could reset.
Really starting to think about that.
And then I put Firefox on my iMac.
And I’m still running the betas, and I don’t know how Firefox is going to react, and I don’t even know if this has anything to do with it.
But I put it on.
I can get to the site, and then I go to my warehouse next door, and I spend a couple hours over there doing some work.
And I get back to my office, wake up my iMac, and my hard drive is full.
The system files, I don’t know what, has eaten everything but about one gigabyte of space on my internal hard drive.
And it’s getting all kinds of warnings popping up, and I end up having to hard shut it down, restart in safe mode, and it clears that system problem.
And so I thought, okay, so maybe I’m back.
And I reboot into normal mode, and within 10 minutes, my hard drive space is gone once again.
And so I shut the computer off.
It’s at the end of the day, and I go home trying to decide what I’m going to do.
My iPad still doesn’t work.
My iMac doesn’t work now.
My MacBook Air still works, trying to figure out the solution.
So the next morning, back at work, and I decide, okay, I only have one choice.
Start up the iMac, hard drive space still gone.
So I do a complete reset down to bare bones and have it start all over again, log in with my Apple ID, have it connect to everything.
It’s not very scary anymore because I have everything in iCloud, so it comes back nice and normal.
Everything works, and it is doing everything that I want it to do.
My hard drive free space remains the same.
All the applications for work are working in Safari.
Everything works exactly as it should.
So then I do the same thing to my iPad, total reset.
I forgot to mention, I delete Firefox from all of my devices.
I don’t know if it’s related, but I decided I’m not taking the chance on that.
Delete everything.
My iPad is reset.
It starts up.
Everything works.
So now I’m there for basically the end of Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
Everything is great.
I did not leave my iMac on over the weekend, so I will have to restart it up on Monday and see how things are going.
My iPad has been fantastic.
Everything seems to be working.
I’m hoping that Developer Beta 2 comes out on Monday, and I can say goodbye to all of these issues.
Well, that’s my SOB story for this week, and that’s all I have for today.
If you have comments, suggestions, or questions, you want to tell me how dumb I am and how I should never do what I’ve done, you can send them to technologybytes at merrickfamily.com.
Thank you for listening to the Technology Bytes Microcast.
I look forward to the next time we are together taking another bite of technology.
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