Apple continues to make changes to the way iOS handles beta software in an attempt to stop people from installing developer betas when they aren’t registered with the company.
Installing a developer beta on an iPhone today involves downloading and applying a developer beta profile. Those profiles can be downloaded from Apple’s developer website, but they’re also offered on shady third-party websites as well. That essentially means that anyone can install them and, as a result, iOS betas. Apple wants to stop that from happening.
To do that, Apple appears to be ditching developer beta profiles entirely. Instead, developers will be able to register an Apple ID and then sign into a special beta portion of the Settings app using those credentials. The latest iOS 16.4 beta includes this new mechanism, although the beta profiles are still active currently.
A new option hidden in the Settings app, under General > Software Update> Beta Updates, allows developers to enter an Apple ID specifically for beta access. This also means that they can enter a special Apple ID, one that isn’t necessarily their personal one or the one that they are signed into their iPhone with.
This means that developers can have their iPhone signed into a personal Apple ID, including iCloud, but also gain access to betas using a work Apple ID at the same time.
“You can sign in with a different Apple ID that is enrolled in the Apple Beta Software Program or Apple Developer Program,” MacRumors reports the current beta as showing.
This same change will also be used for the public beta programs, too. All of this seems most likely to begin with the iOS 17 betas that will be deployed following the WWDC23 event that is expected to take place in June. If that’s the case, people will need to actually be registered as developers or what for the public beta if they want to take Apple’s latest software for a test drive.