In recent years, Apple has allowed customers to take a huge chance. As with members of Apple’s developer program, you can get early access to Apple’s operating systems, for better or worse. And sometimes it can be for worse.

While Apple wasn’t doing public betas of what was then called the Mac OS in the 1990s, they had a Customer Quality Feedback program (CQF) that allowed a small number of regular folk to get access to Apple software — and sometimes the hardware.

I was allowed to participate for a few years, until they reconsidered my status as a journalist and decided I had to go. This happened after the original Bondi blue iMac came out in 1998; I had one for a while. So I wrote an article about it for the Arizona Republic, and was even granted an interview with Jonathan Ive. Remember that few knew then what he’d turn out to be.

Oh well, it as fun while it lasted.

Well, maybe that was it, although I received permission to write that piece, but it was the end of my participation in the beta program until I set aside the cash to become a registered developer. In the old days, you’d also receive a hardware discount, which usually meant that I’d mostly pay for that membership if I bought a new Mac on a regular basis.

Originally, when there were separate iOS and macOS developer programs, you paid a membership fee for each; they’ve since been combined. But when the public beta program was established, that was really no longer necessary unless you actually planned on building apps.

When Apple started the public beta program, it was supposedly limited to one million people, but it does appear that anyone with a pulse can apply and be accepted. Today, you have access to macOS, iOS and tvOS; the latter for the fourth generation Apple TV. When a major release is launched at the WWDC, it will take two or three weeks before it’s cleaned up enough to allow for public access. Otherwise, there’s rarely more than a day’s separation between developer and public betas.

So might as well save your money.

Using a beta operating system can be enlightening, sometimes fun, but just as often infuriating. This is particularly true at the early stages of the beta process, where there are loads of big bad bugs to be fixed.

I’ve worked with Mac betas since the early 1990s, when an Apple developer gave me access to System 7. What I learned early on is that you need to have a full backup handy, in case something goes awry.

I recall macOS releases where it was barely functional in key respects. I heavily depend on Mail, and when it doesn’t work property, it stops me in my tracks. Several macOS releases weren’t stable enough for regular use until a month or two passed. But since I set it up on a separate partition, or drive, no harm is done. I just change the Startup Disk and restart.

With iOS, it’s a bit more difficult to revert to the release OS. It requires a Restore, but Apple gives you access to the last release version via its public beta site. Just don’t forget to back up before you install a public beta. If you attempt to rely on a backup made with the new OS, it probably won’t work with the older one.

I make a huge deal of taking precautions because some people are going to get into trouble, and then have a whale of a time getting a Mac, iPhone or iPad restored.

With the first public beta release of iOS 11, I found it worked decently enough, and I liked the new features. But I stopped dead in my tracks when I couldn’t run Google Maps. Whenever it tried to create a route, it would crash. That might not be important, unless you’re using an app or service that relies upon Google Maps, such as Lyft. So it was either make some extra money from a side gig, or give up the public beta, and you can guess what I did.

With macOS High Sierra, I opted to install it on my 17-inch MacBook Pro, from 2010. It’s one of the oldest Macs that supports 10.13, and I suspect it will drop off the list next year. But I thought that would happen this year, so maybe I’ll be lucky.

If you’ve read our Comments sections, you’ll see the complaints, from people who believe High Sierra is the worst beta ever, or at least the bugs impact them more directly than in previous versions. But I’ve been doing this for a while, and I find it a mixed bag. In addition to the inability to wake from Sleep on my MacBook Pro, Mail refuses to fully download new messages, or at least those received in the weeks since I last used it.

Performance seems no slower than Sierra, however, and most apps appear to run, for the most part. Since the Mac is now upgraded to APFS, the successor to the aging file system, HFS+, going back means erasing and restoring. So I’ll tolerate the problems, and I’m sure most will be resolved after a few updates.

But that’s also a key reason why I’m not going to install High Sierra on a second partition on my iMac. Switching to APFS means I’ll have to restore my Mac, so I’ll wait until I’m convinced the MacBook Pro can handle my mission critical apps without trouble. Then it’ll go on my iMac — after I ran a full backup of course.

I do think you just have to be realistic about the process. Expect the serious bugs to be resolved before long, so that’s no big deal. If you encounter problems, don’t forget to use Apple’s Feedback app to send along the details.

After all is said and done, what do you think about the new or changed features? Do they justify the upgrade? That’s the real issue.

When Apple debuted Touch ID on the iPhone 5s in 2013, it wasn’t the first fingerprint sensor to appear on a mobile phone. But it probably reached far more people than any predecessor or successor for that matter.

As with some other technologies, such as the Siri digital assistant, Apple didn’t just invent fingerprint sensing out of whole cloth. It came about as the result of the acquisition of a pioneer in the industry, AuthenTec, the previous year. The price, $356 million, was high for Apple at the time, but it was an important move for the company’s future, which included mobile payments.

After all, Apple Pay, which also relies on NFC for proximity detection, wasn’t simply sprung upon an unsuspecting public without a lot of advanced development, which included measures to ensure the highest level of security.

So let’s look at Apple’s most popular competitor, the Samsung Galaxy S8. Released in April, it sports three biometric systems, and all of them are flawed in some way.

Unfortunately, the fingerprint sensor was placed at the rear, because Samsung was evidently not able to figure out a way to embed it in its edge-to-edge AMOLED display. So you have to reach awkwardly in back to unlock the unit, and there’s the risk of smudging the camera lens. So keep a tissue handy.

There are also facial and iris detection sensors, but they are easily defeated by photographs. It makes them useless, and thus puts the owner in a position where only one of three security systems holds the chance of actually providing security.

But what about Apple?

Well, there are ongoing rumors that an iPhone 8 is coming this fall, a special higher-priced model that will incorporate new technologies and honor the product’s 10th anniversary. While Apple doesn’t generally confirm such rumors, it is reported that it will sport an edge-to-edge display, with varying size estimates. There may be a 3D sensor and other advancements, including the first iteration of wireless charging on an Apple gadget.

If true, it’ll be an extraordinary gadget sporting capabilities that will, in time, spread to the regular iPhone models. Compare that to the 27-inch iMac’s 5K display. At first, it was offered on a special, pricier model, but the following year, all larger iMacs went 5K. So perhaps whatever Apple introduces in an iPhone 8 could become the norm in 2018.

Or maybe Apple will see the benefit of always offering a premium model as a means to introduce new technologies.

By far the most confusing rumor, however, is the fate of the iPhone’s Touch ID. Before I go on, don’t forget that this is a mission critical feature. It’s not only important for security, but forms the basis of access to Apple Pay. Because your stored fingerprints are embedded in a secure enclave coprocessor, it appears to be foolproof. You need a live finger, so you can’t pull the grisly stunt you see in the movies, where someone’s finger is cut off and is used to open a protected mobile device or a door lock.

But since Samsung wasn’t able to fit a fingerprint sensor in the front of the Galaxy S8, it is assumed that Apple won’t either. So Touch ID will either be rear-mounted, or nonexistent. The rumors have gone back and forth without any final conclusions. We may not know until the device, if real, is actually demonstrated at an Apple media event.

But since biometrics are critical to an iPhone, it’s not going to be omitted on the mythical iPhone 8. After all, how would Apple Pay, essential for Apple’s fast-growing services business, work?

So it appears to me that Apple probably licked the alleged Touch ID problem and it’ll probably remain on the front of the device.

But there is a published report that Apple is currently testing a successor to Touch ID, a facial recognition scheme that relies on a 3D sensor. If true, it would mean that 2D photos can’t be used to fool the sensor, but does that mean it’ll be as seamless as Touch ID?

To be sure, Touch ID has been somewhat of a work in progress. With the iPhone 5s, it worked all right, most of the time. As iOS was updated, it got more reliable, and a glitch in which sensitivity to your fingerprint would drop over time was more or less resolved.

Even with the latest gear, it usually requires setting two or more fingerprints to make it reliable. My approach is to set one for each thumb. That way, however I grab my iPhone, I can be certain it’ll usually function. It’s not quite 100%, but close enough under most circumstances.

What’s more, I’ve not heard of people being able to crack Touch ID. But I have no doubt that Apple is working on better systems. In addition to facial recognition, which is already being used in a simpler fashion for such apps as Photos, Apple is probably testing iris sensors too.

It’s quite possible a future iPhone — maybe even the iPhone 8 — will sport at least two biometric sensors. Regardless of which solution or solutions appear, Apple is not going to release something of that sort unless it actually works and provides extreme levels of security. Compare that to Samsung, a company that doesn’t seem to care whether a highly-promoted — and significant security feature — works or not.

You know, it wasn’t so many years ago that I would install developer betas of new operating systems the very first day they appeared on Apple’s site. I didn’t mind hitting the wall on an installation, or just running the apps that I used most often. But I also had a spare Mac around, or a spare drive, so I could test the waters, first, and go through different builds before they were reliable enough to commit my work computer to the process.

I don’t have much in the way of extra gear anymore; well unless you count that 17-inch MacBook Pro from 2010, which still gets regular if occasional use. A couple of years ago, it was upgraded from 4GB to 8GB RAM, and the internal 500GB hard drive was replaced with an similarly-sized SSD from Other World Computing. So it runs a whole lot faster than before, and thus it appeared to be a suitable platform for macOS High Sierra.

But it’s also one of the oldest Macs that will support an upgrade to 10.13. Those requirements are unchanged from Sierra, which ran pretty well. It was worth taking a chance.

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You know the story. Apple repeats it nearly every quarter when reporting Mac sales, up or down. About 50% of the people buying one are new to the platform; most are presumably Windows switchers.

Now I’m not altogether sure where Apple gets its data. Perhaps people just registering a Mac for the first time are given a questionnaire to respond to a few questions. I have not seen one, but I’ve been buying Macs since the late 1980s. I’m obviously not new to the platform.

Since I haven’t seen a legitimate argument that this claim is false, I’ll leave it be. But that brings us to a recent headlined story from MacRumors on the subject. The headline pretty much sums it up: “Nearly One in Four Windows Users Surveyed Plan to Switch to Mac Within Next Six Months.” In turn, only 2% of those surveyed plan to switch to Windows.

The survey was made by Verto Analytics, and is based on a sampling of 6,000 current Windows PC owners age 18 or over. There’s not much more about the survey’s demographics, except that the highest percentage of potential Mac switchers earn annual incomes of $150,000 or more.

According to the company’s site, Verto Analytics has four offices around the world and claims to have been quoted by major publications. That said, there’s little indication of a track record for accuracy. Surveys can often be manipulated to produce any result you want, and this one is provocative.

On the surface, this new survey doesn’t seem at all logical. Mac sales growth has been on the slow side of late, in the face of flat or declining sales of PCs. In the first quarter of 2017, PC shipments in the U.S. totaled 12.3 million units according to a Gartner survey. Of these, Apple sold 1.47 million; the rest of Mac sales were in other countries. So Windows PC sales alone were 10.83 million, meaning a high single digit share for the Mac.

If this 10.83 million figure represented 75% of the potential total, with the rest going Mac, millions of sales aren’t being accounted for. And that would just involve switchers, not regular Mac users who merely wanted to upgrade.

Besides, that someone says they’re buying something doesn’t mean it’s true. Buying intentions are seldom accurate. Also, this survey covers buying plans for the next two quarters, but does that mean there will be a huge spurt in Mac demand?

As it stands, the conclusion doesn’t really wash if you try to parse recent sales figures in any meaningful way. I’m just playing around with the number in a casual way, but it makes for a great headline, and is certain hit bait. At least we have a situation here where a provocative story favors Apple, rather than the other way around.

At the same time the reporter spoils the piece by again touting Microsoft’s alleged success in selling their own PC boxes, the Surface, and “experiencing a resurgence in the post-PC world with an attractive lineup of devices…” Also mentioned is Microsoft’s unproven claim, about more people switching from Macs than ever due to the alleged “disappointment” with the 2016 MacBook Pro. This claim, however, is undercut by the fact that Mac sales have actually grown in the last two quarters, after falling slightly, and this all happened after the new high-end notebook was released.

The argument is further undercut by the revelation that Surface revenue fell 26% in the March quarter, and remains a fraction of Apple’s Mac revenue. So if the Surface is really catching on, why such a steep drop?

It does seem that the Surface is getting a level of hype that’s way beyond its actual sales success, which is not at all impressive for a PC. It’s similar to the high level of attention Amazon is earning for the Echo, even though estimated sales are still no great shakes as low-cost gadgets go.

The long and short is that I don’t believe that 25% of U.S.-based PC owners really plan to switch to the Mac in the next six months. The evidence just isn’t there.

I also do not believe the Surface has been a successful product for Microsoft beyond its hype value, and it doesn’t seem as if it’s generating much in the way of profits. Sure, a Surface isn’t cheap, but Apple sells relatively high-cost gear in far greater quantities, and economies of scale surely help drive those legendary profit margins.

Still, it’s awful nice to read an article that, for the most part, says something favorable about Apple even if the main conclusion isn’t well founded. I’ll be curious to see how Mac sales stack up in the upcoming quarter and the next.

Still, I do expect Mac sales to grow at a higher rate, mostly because Apple launched a larger-than-expected number of product upgrades at the WWDC. It will surely help during the back-to-school and holiday quarters.

One thing is certain, however. I do not expect CEO Tim Cook to say anything at all about the 25% number. He might repeat the mantra about 50% of Macs being sold to customers who are new to the platform, but we’ve heard that one for years. It may even be true, but with relatively slow sales growth for the platform, what does that say about the existing Mac customer base?