Don't be a beta power user

I got an invite to the iOS 13 public beta recently (during public beta 5), though I don't remember signing up for that, it looked legit (good email From domain). I asked an Apple fanboy friend of mine about it, and he said, “This is the public beta so it's stable enough for regular use. Some apps may have quirks here and there but those will be updated in coming months. … I'd run the beta on both devices. Have fun.”

After two weeks of use, I've sent in 48 Feedback reports. I've also amended some as certain bugs have persisted over two successive betas.

The thing is, each one of these reports can generate a massive amount of diagnostic data to send to Apple. They warn you about the possible content, but not the size.

Today, the “Other” storage on my 64 GB iPad used by Apple ballooned to filling up half the device and sending me storage warnings.

One site I found suggested clearing Web site data from Safari as that can take a lot, and that, amazingly enough, actually freed up more than 15 GB of storage. That may be enough to stave off me reverting to iOS 12 for the time being.

This new development in the iOS 13 experience this evening has been a bit nerve-wracking, and I'm less inclined to send in any more data-filled reports if reporting itself is going to cause me problems.

It takes quite a while for iTunes to sync 20-30 GB of “diagnostic data.” I started this post long after it started, and in the time it's taken me to write this, it's just over half-way done sync'ing it to iTunes. What Apple thinks I need with diagnostic information is beyond me. Hopefully it doesn't try to upload all that over a metered connection.