macOS Mojave Public Beta Is Here, but Should You Download It?

Jun. 27, 2018

Now,macOS Mojave isn’t another ‘under-the-hood’ upgrade like macOS High Sierrawas last year (and fortunately, it has a better name than macOS High Sierra), in fact, it brings quite a lot of new features to Apple’s lineup of desktops and laptops. However, while the Public Beta is available for anyone to download without the need for a $99/year developer account, is it really something you should download on your MacBook or iMac? Well, let me list out my experience with Apple’s latest desktop operating system so far.

macOS Mojave Public Beta — The Good

For as long as I can remember (other than last year with High Sierra), every macOS update has brought a bunch of new features to the proverbial table, and this year seems to be the biggest update in recent memory.

Right off the bat, theboot-up time in macOS Mojave is incredible. MacBooks have always been insanely fast to boot up, especially since Apple switched to those blazing fast SSDs, but macOS Mojave has made it even faster. So much so, that it basically doesn’t feel like it’s booting up at all, and I love that.

There are a bunch of new features inmacOS Mojave, most visible among them being the oh-so-beautifuldark mode(thank you, Apple!), the amazingDynamic Wallpapersthat look stunning (especially the one it shows at night),desktop stackswhich, for me at least, are a godsend, and a lot more.

Apple has also made Quick Look a lot more useful, and it canhandle basic markup right there without having to open Preview, which means I basically don’t open Preview any more. It can even let you trim videos without having to open them up in QuickTime first. It’s a ridiculously good time saver that I can not live without now.

There are a bunch of other features as well, and we’ve covered them in adedicated article, so you should definitely go and check it out.

I mean, c’mon, being on the latest version of macOS will give you bragging rights.

There’s a lot more to brag about in macOS Mojave, and top of all that, it’s pretty stable as far as beta releases go.

Just as “with great power comes great responsibility,” with great features come some pretty major drawbacks as well, at least on beta software. Not that you shouldn’t be expecting the issues I’ll be listing down below, because it’s a beta, and literally everyone will tell you to beware because it’s pre-release software and it can damage, or completely kill your laptop.

Thebiggest issue for me is the hit my battery life has taken. While I was on High Sierra, my MacBook consistently lasted around 10 hours on a full charge. Now… well, now it lasts 4 to 5 hours at best, with the same workload it had earlier. So clearly, the battery life will take a hit with macOS Mojave.66% battery = 3 hours remaining

However, I’m pretty confident that Apple will fix this by the time we get to the stable release later this fall.

This is quite possibly the most obvious drawback of installing a beta build of an operating system. Apps will break; not all of them, fortunately, but enough of them.

Like I said, everyone tells you not to install beta software on your primary machine as it can lead to data loss, and might even permanently screw up your Mac, what I’ve never seen people mentioning isthe simple, ugly fact that once you’ve updated your Mac to the Public or Developer Beta, you can’t rollback to the original version you had before.

So, if you’re coming from macOS High Sierra, and you think that there are maybe too many bugs and you want to roll back, well you’re out of luck because you can’t. You can only go to the next beta, or to the stable version of Mojave when it releases later this fall.

once you’ve updated your Mac to the Public or Developer Beta, you can’t rollback to the original version you had before

Why, you ask? Well, it’s simple. Whenever you try to install an OS update, your laptop checks whether it’s newer as compared to whatever is installed on your system already. If it is, everything is fine and the update starts up. However, if it’s not, it’ll simply fail.

Now imagine this, you installed the Public Beta on your primary laptop and it broke the very apps that you need for your work. You, kind reader, are unfortunately screwed.

All that said, if you were still feeling brave enough to install macOS Mojave on your laptop, only to find out that it did screw up the very apps that your livelihood depends upon, don’t go rushing to drop another $1000+ on a replacement.There is a way to roll back your system. However, it involves steps that will almost always wipe your data right off the system.

So, the question arises, should you install the macOS Mojave Public Beta? Well, youcanbut I wouldn’t recommend it unless you absolutely need the new features right now.

In my usage, the macOS Mojave beta hasn’t been so buggy that I regret jumping the gun and upgrading right away. However, as it is with most software updates, your mileage may vary, andI can’t reallyrecommendanyone to install the beta version of macOS Mojave.

Obviously, if you’re as keen as I am, you probably are going to install it anyway, in which case, I wish you the best of luck, and leave you with two things:

So, are you updating your Mac to the latest version of macOS available? If you are, let us know, if you already have, let us know how it’s working out for you. There’s a comment section down below, so drop your thoughts and comments right there.