The pretty-darn-stable public beta release of iOS 10 is available now. If you want to take advantage of it, we’re here to show you how to update your iPhone, iPad, or other eligible iOS device and try it out.
When to Update to the Beta (And When You Shouldn’t)
Before we proceed even single step into this tutorial, let’s be perfectly clear: you’re signing up for a beta release. While the public beta of iOS 10 is quite stable (especially in comparison to past iOS beta releases), it’s beta none the less. There will be crashes, frozen apps, quirks, and other hiccups.
With that in mind, if you only have one iOS device and you rely on it for critical things like work-related apps, keeping in touch with hospitalized family, or any number of stability-is-key scenarios, you should wait for the public release of iOS 10 proper in the Fall of 2016.
If, on the other hand, you’re super excited to start playing around with iOS 10’s new features and you’re okay with some instability and hiccups, then by all means proceed. You’ll get to try out all the features (and provide feedback on them) before the general public.
Ready to volunteer for unpaid beta testing? Let’s jump right in.
What You Need
To follow along today, you need a few simple things. First and foremost, you need a compatible iOS device. Let’s break it down by iOS device category.
Every iPhone from iPhone 5 going forward is compatible, including the following devices:
- iPhone 6s
- iPhone 6s Plus
- iPhone 6
- iPhone 6 Plus
- iPhone SE
- iPhone 5s
- iPhone 5c
- iPhone 5
The list gets a little harder to parse when we start talking about iPads, on account of different naming conventions, but basically if you have an iPad 2 or newer you’re covered:
- iPad Pro 12.9-inch
- iPad Pro 9.7-inch
- iPad Air 2
- iPad Air
- iPad 4th generation
- iPad 3rd generation
- iPad 2
- iPad mini 4
- iPad mini 3
- iPad mini 2
- iPad mini
Finally, you can install iOS 10 beta on the latest two generations of the iPod Touch:
- iPod touch 5th generation
- iPod touch 6th generation
Once you’ve determined that you have a compatible device, you’ll need to sign up for an Apple Beta Software Program account. Signing up is as simple as using your regular Apple ID to confirm you want to join the program.
In addition to the device hardware requirements, we also strongly suggest you have a Windows PC or Mac running the most current version of iTunes in order to do a complete backup of your device in it’s iOS 9 state before updating to iOS 10 beta. Let’s start there.
Step One: Back Up Your iOS Device Up With iTunes
Why back up to a local machine? Even with a fast connection, pulling down a full iCloud backup can take a very long time for a phone with a lot of apps and storage. Further, you never have to worry about running out of space or your backup being overwritten when you have the extra space of a hard drive (compared to the very limited amount of space allocated to the free iCloud account). If you want to wipe your phone and go back to iOS 9, the process will take a few minutes if you have a local backup and, potentially, hours and hours if you have to do it over the internet.
In case we haven’t made it very clear by this point: back up your device to iTunes before proceeding.
Don’t remember how? Don’t worry. These days, many iOS users never even look at iTunes, so you’re probably not alone. To back up, run iTunes and plug in your iOS device with the sync cable. Look for the device icon near the upper left corner of the iTunes interface and click on it.
In the device “Summary” page, which is open by default when selecting the device, scroll down to the “Backups” setting and check “This computer” as the backup location, then check “Encrypt iPhone backup”–if you don’t encrypt your backup, you’ll lose all your account passwords saved in Safari and other apps, all your Health data, and all your Homekit data and settings. Click “Back Up Now” to start the backup.
Even with a particularly full iPhone, the process shouldn’t take long–our 64GB iPhone 6 was a little over half full and it backed up over USB in a little over 10 minutes.
Speaking of particularly full iPhones, if your iOS device is packed to the gills with stuff, you may not have room for the iOS 10 update. While you’re waiting for the backup process to finish, take a peek at the bottom of the device panel and see how much free space you have on the device.
The iOS 10 beta update is approximately 1.7GB in size, and requires about 1.5GB of temporary space to use during the upgrade process. It would be wise to, at minimum, round those two numbers up, add them, and aim for 4GB of free space on your device before you upgrade. If you’re tight on room, now is a great time to delete something with a big footprint but that is easy to put back on later (like a mobile game with a huge storage requirement or a bunch of audiobooks you can re-download after the fact). Check out Settings > General > Usage on your device to see what’s using up the space.
Step Two: Update Your Configuration Profile
Once you’ve successfully backed up your device and, if necessary, freed up some space, it’s time to update to iOS 10 beta. The public beta update is an Over The Air (OTA) process so make sure you’ve got your device fully charged and, preferably, hooked up to a charging cable.
On your iOS device, launch Safari and navigate to https://beta.apple.com/profile. If prompted, log into the same Apple account you linked to the beta testing program. Scroll down and look for the step “Download Profile” and click it.
You’ll be prompted to install the profile. Click “Install” in the upper right corner.
If your device is secured with a PIN number, you’ll be prompted to enter it. Next you’ll see a big block of legalese, click “Install” in the upper right corner again. Finally you’ll be prompted to restart your phone. Click “Restart”. Note: this does not install iOS 10, it merely updates the profile on your phone so that you are even eligible for the OTA update in the first place.
After the phone restarts, it’s time to actually download and apply the update.
Step Three: Apply the Update
With the phone booted back up and with a healthy battery life, navigate to Settings > General > Software Update. When you click on it you should see the following entry for “iOS 10 Public Beta 1” (or higher, if you’re reading this tutorial once further Beta updates have rolled out).
Click on “Download and Install”.
Enter your PIN, if applicable, and then accept another round of agreements. Once you’ve done that, the download will start–but be prepared to wait (especially if you’re following along with this tutorial around the July 7 release of the first public beta). Even though our broadband connection would normally make very short work of a simple ~2GB download, it took around a half hour to download the update file.
Once the update file is on your device, the “Download and Install” option, seen above, will turn to “Install”. You can install immediately or use the install later function (but come on, this is a beta release and not Christmas Eve, you want to play with your toys now).
Sit back and relax while the update installs and, if you haven’t done so already, plug your phone into the charging cable to play it safe. Also, be patient and leave it be: this isn’t a 9.2.X to 9.2.Y update, this is a major version update.
Completing the Process
When your iOS device finishes updating and you’re back at the lock screen, key in your PIN to get started. You’ll be prompted to accept some more agreements (iOS software is, apparently, agreements all the way down). Then you’ll be prompted to participate in various data collection programs like error reporting to Apple and app developers. Even if you normally lock down those kind of privacy settings we’d encourage you to turn them on (at least while you’re using beta versions of iOS). The whole point of the beta program is for curious/dedicated iOS users to try things out before they reach the public in a stable release–every error report helps.
In addition to enabling error reporting, you may notice that there is now a new Apple provided app on your phone: Feedback.
If you run into weird glitches with iOS 10, you can tap on the Feedback icon and file a report using a very well laid out report form.
With an extra minute of effort here or there your bug reports will help polish the edges of iOS 10 before it is released to the public.
A sign up here, an “I agree” here, there, and everywhere, and after a little downloading you’re up and running iOS 10 months before everyone else. Now it’s time to play with the slew of new features and see how things change between now and the Fall release.