Since the middle of June, Mac developers have had the chance to pound on betas of Apple’s operating systems to find bugs and make sure their products are compatible. The public got their chance a couple of weeks later with macOS Sierra and iOS 10. All told, more than a million have had their chance to see what Apple is working on, and there’s been plenty of coverage.

Let’s hope Apple pays attention to all that user feedback they must be receiving.

It’s unfortunate that a few have treated these betas as final releases in the way they cover them. The bugs, of which there are plenty, are described in exquisite detail, and Apple is criticized for their lapses. Forgotten is the fact that prerelease software is apt to have lots of problems, and the purpose of a beta is to iron out as many as possible, with the emphasis on things that can cause crashes, data loss and poor performance.

The beta process is entering the late stages. iOS 10 will be out in less than a month, meaning that the Golden Master, or the first Golden Master, is near. So iOS 10 ought to be in a pretty decent state of development by now, with only some final spit and polish and lingering bugs left to deal with.

I had more confidence in iOS 10 than macOS Sierra, so my iPhone 6 has been running it since the early days. After suffering through some irritants and sluggish performance for the early betas, it’s in good enough shape now that I find it hard to locate the signs that it’s still a beta. I’m sure some of you have your own lists, but the worst I see is a Safari glitch, where after using the option to “Clear History and Website Data,” some sites won’t display properly until I restart. Otherwise, it’s been rock solid.

But this isn’t a review, so don’t pay attention to the problems.

I’ve been using Macs for over 30 years, so let’s focus on macOS Sierra for the rest of this column.

Siri is, as expected for weeks before Sierra was launched, is the big deal. Siri is smarter for iOS 10, and for the Mac as well. But I generally use Siri to set alarms or map directions on my iPhone. I also made it clear Siri’s arrival on the Mac wasn’t my first choice of a most compelling feature. I will give it its due, however.

What I do like is the fact that I’m not forced to call upon Siri with my primary input source, the external Behringer mic mixer I use to record my radio shows. So I was able to pick the Internal Microphone without changing what I selected in the Sound preference pane. Maybe the rest will come, or maybe I’ll write my review of the release version of macOS Sierra and conclude it’s still not my cup of tea.

Sierra also has a smarter Photos app, with a Memories feature that lets you harness its face recognition capability to create slideshows and other fancy collections.

If you have an Apple Watch or iPhone with Touch ID, you can use it on a Mac with Sierra to make online purchases funded via Apple Pay. Here Apple is leveraging its Continuity feature, which allows all its devices to talk with one another. You can also awaken your Mac from the Apple Watch, and it makes me wonder if the next generation of Macs will have their own Touch ID sensor.

The cloud’s importance is never more obvious than the Universal Clipboard, allowing you to copy on one device, paste on another. The Desktop and Documents folders are shared on your iCloud Drive and available to all your gear, even your iPhone and iPad.

If you have a Mac with a tiny SSD, such as a basic MacBook Air, you’ll appreciate the Optimized Storage feature that can call upon iCloud for storage of documents you don’t lose often. It can also help you get rid of duplicate and obsolete files, such as all those extra app installers that accumulate over the years.

Messages is flashier, echoing some of the advanced formatting features of the iOS version. If you’re into emojis, you’ll be in your element. It won’t light my fire, but I’m sure it has its charms.

Although it’s supposedly in a fairly advanced state of development, Sierra, to me, remains in shakier condition than iOS 10. I’m using it on a second partition on a recent 27-inch iMac. But it hasn’t become stable enough to consider using it as my primary OS, even though Sierra-savvy apps are arriving. As usual, Mail has not been well behaved.

In a sense, this is reminiscent of Mail’s condition with El Capitan. One problem, stalling for 30 seconds for no accountable reason, still exists with OS 10.11.6. I assume the chances of a 10.11.7 are probably slim to none.

I’m not overly concerned with macOS Sierra’s shaky condition, since it probably won’t be out until October, in keeping with previous releases. There’s still time to clean it up, so it probably won’t be long before it earns a place on my primary partition.

But not yet.

The Apple Watch has been somewhat of a controversial product. Not that it’s necessarily bad or anything, but some tech pundits were expecting a runaway success. But even the most optimistic assessments of Apple Watch sales don’t point in that direction, though it does fare better when you compare it to the first generation iPhone in 2007.

The starting price isn’t terribly high. The cheapest Apple Watch Sport, the 38mm model, is $299. This is $50 less than the original price. The 42mm version is $50 more. Compare that to the very first iPod in 2001, sporting 5GB of storage capacity, which cost $399. The big pull was having 1,000 songs in your pocket, which doesn’t seem like a whole lot, but the iPod quickly gained traction; more so when capacities were boosted and a Windows version became available.

But the price climbs rapidly, and an Apple Watch Edition starts at $10,000. I can’t imagine very many people are buying them, but I can see where Apple gets some street cred in the fashion industry by having devices with five-figure price tags.

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I remember when I bought my first iPhone in 2008, a year after its debut, and I signed up with AT&T. At the time, data usage was unlimited, and I suspect the bigwigs at the company formerly known as Cingular Wireless didn’t have a clue how much data iPhone users would crave.

Now for those of you who used AT&T then, the network was none too good. Dropped calls didn’t happen that often, but often enough to be downright annoying. While the “unlimited” deal was grandfathered for some years, it got to a point where, if you exceeded a certain amount, they’d throttle the speed. Traditional cable-based ISPs may pull the same stunt if you exceed their bandwidth caps after too much binging on Netflix. That is, if they don’t simply shut you down until the next month.

Over the years, there have been a number of changes in wireless data plans over the years. Things really got moving when T-Mobile pulled off its “Uncarrier” promotion. That separated your wireless plan from the purchase of your smartphone, a good or bad maneuver that resulted in actually knowing what you were paying for each product or service.

Competition for your business is fierce at a time when growth is slowing. So plans frequently change, sometimes in ways that may be incomprehensible.

So the latest data plan from AT&T continues its rollover scheme, where the data you don’t consume one month is saved and added to your allotment for the next month. This can add up over a few months if you’re reasonably parsimonious about using online resources with your smartphone. It also helps when you need extra data on occasion, so you don’t have to suddenly buy a more expensive plan.

AT&T’s new scheme also calls for no overages, meaning if you exceed the amount of data you’ve ordered, service won’t be terminated, and you won’t get a bill for excessive use. Instead it’ll be throttled to what’s referred to as “2G” speeds, which is not a whole lot higher than old fashioned dialup. It may be all right for email and casual web browsing, but that’s as far as it goes.

In any case, you can believe that the new plans were quickly countered with new plans from T-Mobile and Sprint, both of which are taking a questionable “unlimited” route. The T-Mobile One plan promises unlimited 4G LTE data, unlimited talk, and unlimited text for $40 per line, based on a family of four. If you opt for just one line, it’s $70 per month. Ah, the traps of the fine print!

According to a Reuters report on the plan, unlimited video is strictly standard definition. If you prefer HD, which means that you’ll be consuming a whole lot more data, there’s a $25 per month surcharge. So theoretical unlimited and practical unlimited are far apart. Or maybe you wouldn’t care on a smartphone because standard definition doesn’t look so bad on a five-inch display.

Sprint’s plan is $60 per month for a single line, and there are limits to “unlimited” when it comes to gaming, music and video, which are pushed at “optimized” rates, which probably means as little as they can get away with. For $100 per month, you can set up two lines, and it’s $30 extra for each additional line.

I just wonder if the FTC should investigate such promotions, especially since the “unlimited” claims all have limitations and terms and conditions that reduce the actual amount of data you can consume even if you spent several hours a day on your smartphone watching stuff.

Why can’t “unlimited” be what the name implies?

Probably because the wireless carriers would be forced to upgrade their networks to accommodate all that extra traffic, and that would reduce profits if the rates aren’t changed. But something’s gotta give, and I would hope improved technologies, and the smart use of on-the-fly data compression, would allow these companies to use their bandwidth more efficiently.

Now none of these new pricing schemes impacts me all that much. I suppose it would if I spent a lot of time on the road away from Wi-Fi and needed to stream lots of video. I would then be forced to order something more than the relatively low-cost package I use now.

I’m more concerned, though, about how binge watching impacts users of traditional broadband networks. Hidden in the fine print for your ISP’s service plan is usually a bandwidth cap of some sort. On the one I use now, it’s 250GB for downloads only; uploads aren’t counted. But I’m moving to a new home that provides free broadband to all residents of the housing complex. I don’t know about data caps. It may not even be measurable for each user on a large shared network, but I will inquire once I test the service. I would hate to hit the wall when I need to upload a show to my server, or retrieve a macOS update from Apple.

The real impact, though, is felt by those of you consuming 4K video from Netflix, Amazon Instant Video and other providers. First, you need a steady Internet speed of 15 megabits per second, which probably means you should haves  at least twice that figure. Or everyone in your home will be forced to do nothing online while watching your TV. It also means that bandwidth consumption will soar very quickly, and it won’t take long to slurp hundreds of gigabytes of data; think in terms of days rather than weeks.

Sure, your ISP can simply charge more for extreme binge watchers. But wouldn’t it be nice when the time comes, as it inevitably must, where such considerations no longer count? You’d just go online and you won’t have to be concerned about those bandwidth meters.

Every year or so, Google promises to make the Android update system more reliable. As it is, when an OS update is posted, there is no guarantee your Android smartphone will ever receive it. Sure, if you own a Nexus device, it should arrive, eventually, but otherwise you may be left waiting and waiting.

Suppose there’s a critical security bug. Google does its due diligence, confirms the bug and releases an update. For those not using a Nexus device, the update goes to the handset manufacturer, not the end user. The manufacturer, in turn, has to decide to push it. So they will integrate it with their own customized junkware. Once that’s done, it goes to the carrier, who may have its own junkware collection and its own agenda.

But once they sell you a phone and a service plan, there’s little incentive to provide ongoing support. Better you buy more hardware. Worse, buying a new Android handset may still saddle you with a fairly old OS.

According to the stats I saw at Mixpanel Trends, which records OS adoption rates, the number one Android OS, Lollipop 5.0/5.1, released in 2014, has a share of 33.46%. The next most popular Android OS is KitKat 4.4, released in 2013, at 27.76%.

What I said! The majority of Android handsets currently in use have operating systems that are nearly two to three years old. They will likely never receive upgrades for newer OS versions, or, if they do, it’ll take a long time for the red tape to be dealt with. So regardless of what spiffy new features are being offered by Google, customers won’t see it for years, and there’s no incentive for developers to support those features right away, since it won’t enhance a user experience for more than a small percentage of users.

Now consider what might happen if a critical security problem was discovered. That happens frequently, even on Apple’s platforms. But Apple made the smart decision to assume full control of their mobile gear, which means they can push OS updates whenever necessary. Just about every update for iOS and macOS includes a bunch of security fixes. While few, if any, result in compromised gear, it’s important to remove even the potential, and Apple has gotten increasingly proactive in delivering critical security fixes. A bounty of up to $200,000 was recently established for hackers and security researchers when they deliver evidence of a security problem.

Android? I don’t know what to say. According to a published report, a Linux TCP bug has made an estimated 1.4 billion Android devices vulnerable to hackers who want to hijack them. That means that 80% of all Android devices can be hijacked if this flaw is exploited.  This comes after another published report indicated that Android devices powered by Qualcomm chips may be vulnerable to rooting flaws; another flaw makes them vulnerable to theft.

According to the International Business Times: “The [TCP] vulnerability affects the Linux Kernel 3.6, which was introduced to Android smartphones during the update to Android version 4.4 KitKat, all the way up to the latest version…”

The article suggests ways to keep your Android gear safe, since receiving a real security fix from Google, the handset maker or the carrier, is slim, but they are definitely not for the casual user: “There are steps users can take to safeguard themselves in the meantime, the most basic of which is ensuring all the websites and apps you use are encrypted and use HTTPS with TLS. You can also use a VPN as an added layer of protection.”

As I said, it’s a solution definitely not suited to regular people, not in the least. Businesses large enough to have an IT department can get by. Clearly the IBTimes wrote that article for a very specific audience. But Android users need to be afraid, very afraid if the bug, considered to be of medium impact, results in lots of compromised gear.

Even if only a small number of Android handsets are compromised, it just goes to demonstrate the severe fragmentation of the Android platform that has resulted in hundreds of millions of users with gear running old operating systems that may never receive a single security update. As a practical matter, sticking within the Android ecosystem system and only downloading apps and music from the Google Play store will deliver the most secure experience. And be careful about the sites you visit.

Now this may not indicate anything, but consider the recent brouhaha with Apple and the FBI. Until they hired a hacker to break into an iPhone 5c owned by a deceased terrorist, the FBI was trying to force Apple to build a back door to iOS to allow them access. In other words, they only secured access to that iPhone with difficulty, and at great expense.

Compare that to Android. Does Google always give access to the FBI if they receive a request? Does the FBI ever face a problem unlocking an Android handset or tablet? Or do criminals prefer the iPhone because it’s more secure, harder to hack? As a practical matter, the iPhone 5c in question was actually a work phone owned by the San Bernardino County Department of Health.

But I do wonder why Google’s mobile OS hasn’t become an issue in government investigations. Does that demonstrate it’s less secure? I’m sure Android users will have a thing or two to say about that.