iOS 5 beta 7 plagued by issues ahead of release date, say developers

by Johnny Major

“The crux of it is that iOS 5 still has plenty of problems,” says an iOS developer who only identifies himself as factsahoy. The good news for end-users is that those problems don’t matter yet, at least not to them, as iOS 5 is still in developer beta testing, hence the “iOS 5 beta 7″ terminology. Apple’s stance is that the new iPad and iPhone operating system isn’t yet finished, but it’s far enough along that it’s opened it up to a round of testing on the part of third party app developers. Seven rounds now, in fact. So how’s that testing going ahead of the iOS 5 release date?

“The sheer number of bugs and issues that have been evolving,” says a developer who identifies himself as PlutoPrime. “Getting fixed is too numerous to list here. In fact, in beta 7 alone there are yet so many bugs and outstanding issues that I would be shocked if it didn’t get pushed to a beta 8 or even beta 9 before we talk about a Golden Master copy.” He points to the new iCloud feature as being the chief culprit in the long testing cycle, adding that “For all the applications to work to Apples standards this particular release cycle is perfectly normal.”

For its part Apple first previewed iOS 5 back in June during its WWDC developer conference, although the information has since been made available on Apple.com. The crux of iOS 5 is that it’s a major revamp of the on-screen interface for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. While it’ll be preinstalled on new hardware which is released going forward, it’ll also be made available as a free download for those users on existing devices such as the iPad 2 and iPhone 4.