Until now, Apple has followed a fairly strict policy of releasing its OS X betas only to its registered developers. The company is now changing this policy, making OS X beta downloads available to non-developers as well.
The beta releases from Apple are essentially meant to spot and eliminate the bugs and other issues in an upcoming OS version. If you wanted to access these beta releases before today, you had to sign up for the Developer Program, which costs a cool $99 per year. However, for casual users who simply want to check out the new OS and aren’t necessarily developers, this was an unnecessary price tag.
Apple has finally realized this. The company is now repealing its policy and has announced a new OS X Beta Seed Program. Under this program, users with an Apple ID can sign up for access to pre-releases of the Mac OS. In other words, you can directly use your Apple ID to download OS X betas without requiring to sign up for the Developer Program.
The new policy is such that both Apple and the users stand to gain from it. For Apple, this would mean a huge increase in the downloads of OS X betas. This, in turn, would more quickly and effectively identify and root out the bugs present in such a release. For the users, the policy change means that they no longer have to pay an annual fee for the privilege of downloading an OS X pre-release version.
If you are interested in the new program, head straight to this page, punch in your Apple ID and sign up for it. Once you are registered with the program, you will be able to view forthcoming pre-release versions and beta builds of OS X through the Mac App Store.
Source: Apple
Courtesy: Redmond Pie
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