Apple Seeds 3rd Public Betas of macOS High Sierra, tvOS 11

Apple has seeded the third public beta versions of both tvOS 11 and macOS High Sierra, two weeks after the operating systems’ last updates. Both beta versions are relatively minor in scale, and add nominal changes.

macOS High Sierra Public Beta 3

macOS High Sierra Beta 3 is fairly light on the changes, which includes a new icon for the native Contacts app with a female silhouette. Additionally, a new Now Playing widget is now available for the Notification Center’s Today view. Beta 4 also likely carries a number of bug fixes and enhancements.

High Sierra itself is primarily focused on improving several under-the-hood aspects of macOS, including the addition of a more efficient file system (AFPS) and an upgraded Metal 2 graphics API that will support virtual reality content creation, machine learning and external GPUs. In addition, a new high-efficiency video codec (H.265) is being introduced, along with updates and enhancements to first-party apps like Photos, Siri, Mail and Safari.

tvOS 11 Public Beta 3

Changes to tvOS 11 are also pretty spare in beta 4. The release notes included with the update are light, and don’t detail any new changes from previous betas. Presumably, it focuses on under-the-hood changes, bug fixes and other small refinements.

When tvOS 11 rolls out in the fall, it’ll be a relatively small update. The new Apple TV software received little stage time during WWDC ’17, save for a brief mention that the Amazon Prime Video app will be available for tvOS 11 when it launches. It’ll also include an automatic light/dark mode switching feature, Focus API enhancements, new background modes and other minor additions.

How to Download macOS and tvOS Betas

1. To download the beta versions of Apple’s new software, you’ll need to sign up for the public software beta testing, which you can do so by logging in with your Apple ID here.
2. Once you register a device, you can download the betas via an over-the-air software update or their respective testing portals.

As usual, it’s recommended that you don’t download beta software on your primary devices as they can be extremely buggy. At the very least, perform a backup of your device before proceeding.