Thread: Anyone leery of beta downloads or apps?

This is for the phone but it also is an issue on my PC. Most of the time-with very few exceptions such as for a free trial once in awhile-I do not like beta forms of anything. If I had the money I never would do beta anything. It can be more hassle than it's worth. Do you use them? How often do they give you trouble? I'm not saying all of them do for me, just a couple I tried.

I'm constantly trying out beta apps, but seldom do they give me any real problems. At least nothing that can't be resolved with a simple battery pull or removal of the app if need be. But some issue are to be expected to an extent since beta apps are those being tested for the purpose of finding issues. Most of the time good developers will have tested their product within an inch of its life before releasing it to beta. I know with themes I develop, I am the same way.

But honestly, I've had far less issues with beta apps than I have had with final versions. I've had final releases of apps that have bricked my device and all sorts of nasty things. Never had it happen with a beta though (knock on wood lol).

I have to agree with JavaBratt actually... As a member of the Beta Zone I try to test out as many apps as possible. The biggest issues with beta apps most of the time seem to be battery and memory drain (an extreme rapid loss of either) more so than actually issues with the app.

I have had apps, like BBM Music's early builds completely brick my device but its rare and its the chance u take when testing...

Applications normally go through stages of testing before they are released to the public. Alpha is the first phase and Beta is the second, and many times final stage of testing. What most people fail to realize about beta apps is that they are just test versions of the application, and may have many adverse effects.Most of the time the developer will let you know in a disclaimer that there may be issues, but you have to understand going in that its considered unstable.

With that being said any good developer Alpha and Beta tests their apps. Its extremely important to the the success of an application. When people like us beta test apps we can let the developer know about any issues that we find or give them some suggestions on what we think may work. In short Beta apps should be used with caution because there is always a chance of the application misbehaving.

I enjoy trying beta OS's and apps. Like others have said you have to deal with possible battery or memory drain but you also get to try something new. I loaded the 7.1 release for the 9900. I rarely have a stock OS and have been using leaked and beta OS's for years, however getting this on my phone was a challenge. What should have taken about 20 minutes took a couple of hours. Is that the norm? Nope, but the good thing about doing it often is that you have seen a lot of 'issues' and, provided you slow down (LOL), you can figure out what you are doing wrong.

A plus of owning BB's for me is that (knock on wood) you can pretty much fix or roll it back if it gets bricked. Not always easy, but doable

I wish a gift pass on BB Beta Zone for my birthday! My region ip doesn´t acess granted!

I enjoy beta testing myself. It can cause trouble occasionally but nothing that can't be undone (most of the time anyway)

Originally Posted by reiseb

I wish a gift pass on BB Beta Zone for my birthday! My region ip doesn´t acess granted!

Hopefully RIM will start to expand their BETA program to other countries. We'll keep you updated if it happens.

Originally Posted by Tersammy

I enjoy beta testing myself. It can cause trouble occasionally but nothing that can't be undone (most of the time anyway)

I've always had very little problem with the BETA zone apps besides just a few bugs. Never nuked a device on the beta apps.