Apple just shared iOS 11 beta 7 to developers

Apple just dropped a brand new beta for iOS 11. And you know that iOS 11 is going to be your favorite major iOS update of the year, as there’s only one per year. The company has been testing iOS 11 for a couple of months already. Don’t forget that the beta program is primarily targeted at developers working on app updates.

I still wouldn’t recommend installing iOS 11 on the iPhone you use every day. The changes in iOS 11 will take some time to pay off for your iPhone anyway. And beta versions of iOS usually drain your battery life.

If you’re already running iOS 11, head over to the Settings app of your iPhone or iPad to update. macOS High Sierra, watchOS 4 and tvOS 11 also received a beta update today.

Today’s beta is only available to developers who pay $99 a year to access new betas, developer tools and content. If you’re not a developer, you can also join the (free) public beta program; you’ll receive the same update in a day or two, once Apple knows for sure that the beta isn’t going to destroy your device.

At this point, if you have an iPad and you don’t spend hours using it every day, you could install the public beta of iOS 11 to see what it looks like. Unlike on the iPhone, iOS 11 is going to drastically change your iPad.

iOS 11 turns your iPad into a more capable tablet as you can drag and drop files, app icons and more across the operating system. There’s even a dock, a new app switcher and a Files app so you can launch apps and manage your documents more easily.

And if you don’t have an iPad, most of the changes are under the hood, starting with Apple’s augmented reality framework ARKit. Many developers have been working on ARKit-enabled apps. It should foster augmented reality apps in the App Store. There’s also a completely redesigned Control Center with customizable shortcuts.

If Apple follows the same pattern as in previous years, iOS 11 is going to be available a week after the introduction of the new iPhone. The next iPhone is likely going to be announced in early September. If you don’t want to install iOS 11 just yet and want to see what iOS 11 looks like, I wrote a preview of the upcoming changes.