Mac owners can now test MacOS Mojave with Apple’s new public beta

By Chuong Nguyen Published April 9, 2019

MacOS Mojave 10.14 — Image used with permission by copyright holder

If you want to be among the first to experience the dark mode on MacOS, you can now download MacOS Mojave through Apple’s public beta campaign. Mojave was released earlier this week as part of a developer beta, but now you don’t have to be a developer to test Apple’s latest operating system. Apple will release MacOS Mojave this fall if you don’t want to be part of the beta campaign.

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Announced earlier this month at Apple’s WWDC event, Mojave brings some notable new features to Apple’s desktop operating system that will help users stay productive and secure while working online. In addition to the new dark mode that will provide some relief to your eyes when working in darker environments, Apple announced that the Safari browser on MacOS Mojave will protect against digital fingerprinting to make it harder for websites to track and identify you when you’re browsing the web. Productivity highlights that Mojave brings include new tools that make it easier to capture, record, and edit screen captures and screen recordings, a revamped Mac App Store, Stacks, new Quick Look, new Finder, and ports of Stocks, News, Voice Memos, and Home apps from iOS.

While it may be tempting to experience some of these features today, casual computing users should be warned that this is still a beta. This means that you may experience some growing pains as you test the software and provide feedback to help Apple fine-tune Mojave ahead of its fall release. “Please note that since the public beta software has not yet been commercially released by Apple, it may contain errors or inaccuracies and may not function as well as commercially released software,” Apple cautioned.

Eligible Macs for the Mojave beta include the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air from mid-2012 or newer, the MacBook from early 2015 or newer, the Mac Mini and iMac from late 2012 or newer, the 2017 iMac Pro, or the Mac Pro. As with all beta releases, you may experience bugs, and maintaining backups of your file and data is always a good practice in case something goes wrong. If you’re willing to accept some of these risks, you can enroll your Mac through Apple’s Beta Software Program website.

In addition to MacOS Mojave, Apple will also release iOS 12 for iPhone and iPad this fall.

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