After watching WWDC19, I was quick to jump on Apple’s developer beta page and download the first iOS 13 beta. The new install process for iOS 13 only uses IPSW files instead of a simple over-the-air device profile, making the process a bit more tricky, and since it required that I install X-Code 11, it took quite some time as well.
Experience
At first the overall experience with iOS 13 was very different from what I was used to with iOS 12. It felt much snappier and very smooth. After a few days of diving deeper into iOS 13 and settling into all of the new changes, it became to feel more familiar. Many of the new features and upgrades were well-implemented and worked just fine, but there are still several features that aren’t in the beta version yet, or are essentially unusable. Thankfully it’s likely that many of these will be fixed in the next update or in the public beta.
Dark Mode
Obviously, the first feature that I messed around with in the latest addition to iOS is Dark Mode. I switched it on right away and was met with a nice transition from light to dark. As far as I can tell, most of Apple’s integrated apps in iOS 13 are given the beautiful new dark interface; but many apps, like Instagram, still lack the feature. I haven’t noticed any performance dips for Dark Mode, and have actually noticed a great increase in battery life. Dark Mode saves battery in your phone by the way the OLED displays work. When the color black is displayed on the screen, the device actually turns off those pixels, meaning in those areas your display technically isn’t even on at all, saving tons of battery life. Sadly this is only the case for iPhones with OLED displays (iPhone X, XS, XS Max)
Bugs
While most of iOS 13 lacks glitches and performance flaws; there are, however, some major bugs in the Developer beta. For example, I have had many complete crashes and some apps (Sweatcoin, iFunny, some games, and many others) won’t launch at all, which is obviously very annoying.
Overview
In conclusion, iOS 13 has a good amount of both pros and cons. If you’re excited about iOS 13 and can’t wait for it, definitely try out the public beta which is releasing on June 24 this year. If you’re a developer, or are feeling more risky, you can try out the Developer Beta if you have an Apple Dev account as well.
