iOS 9 Preview: Is the Beta Worth Installing?

iOS 9 Preview

You can follow our guide to prepare for the iOS 9 beta to make sure that you are ready. This includes registering, backing up your iPhone and if possible using a spare device.
I am testing the iOS 9 beta on the iPhone 6 Plus and the iPad Air 2 because the newest iPad gets an awesome split screen feature that many users will enjoy.

iOS 9 Beta Performance

If you are looking to install the public iOS 9 beta, the good news is that you missed out on the first developer version that crashed often, devastated battery life and was not very fun to use. That is all part of using a very early beta, and something we expected. With the public iOS 9 beta the performance will likely be closer to the latest iOS 9 developer betas, which is to say very good for a beta. Even on the newest and most powerful devices I still experience some app crashes on the iOS 9 beta, but after the second beta arrived the overall experience improved dramatically, and this is something you should expect on the public iOS 9 beta.
Here is a closer look at several areas of the iOS 9 beta that you need to know about before you decide to install the public iOS 9 beta on your iPhone or iPad.

iOS 9 Siri

Apple is very excited about Siri in iOS 9, but so far there is not much to get excited about on the beta. The new Siri and Spotlight page to the left of your home screen does not pull in a lot of relevant data yet, but this is something that could change in the full iOS 9 release later this year when the feature is fully baked and apps can work with it.
The voice features in Siri are handy because Siri is more aware of your location. Siri can search inside apps, deliver more complex results like showing you the photos you took last month and more.
Using the new search, that is enhanced with Siri’s features, allows for a quicker overall search of your phone. The news information on the left side isn’t very handy yet, but this could change with the News app that Apple is letting users test now.

iOS 9 Battery Life

The new Low Power Mode can deliver three more hours of iPhone battery life.

There is always a chance that some problem could impact your iPhone battery life on the iOS 9 beta, but for the most part the iOS 9 battery life is solid on the latest developer builds and should be similar for public iOS 9 beta users.