The third betas of iPadOS and iOS 16.4 reached developers a few days ago. This update is intended to be almost certainly the last major release before the presentation of iOS 17. In this latest beta, it has been considered as Apple wants to change the way developers install betas on your devices. Since iOS 16.4, a user you will not be able to install a developer profile it is not yours since the way to do it will be through the login with an Apple ID registered in the Developer Center or in the Big Apple Public Betas program.
Farewell to a user installing a developer profile that is not their own in iOS 16.4
This big change will affect many levels in the coming months. But before we start with the change, let’s see how the situation is now. When Apple releases a developer beta, there is only one way to install it on your device. Forks installing a developer profile on your device that detects the update and allows it to be downloaded. To have a profile, it is necessary to be registered in the Developer Center. For what a normal user cannot access this profile. However, until now we could use a developer profile unofficial thus being able to install the betas.
However, this is not the case with the public beta program, which tracks developer betas. Any user can register for this program and access these betas. But all that will change from iOS 16.4. Apple has implemented a beta access system (either public or for developers). In other words, a user must sign in with an Apple ID registered in the Developer Center or in the public beta program before you can access these builds.
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There will be no way to install developer profiles, but iOS will determine if you are eligible to access these betas. To do this we will have to go to Settings> General> Software updates and we can log in with a different Apple ID than the one we use on our device. This Apple ID is therefore the key to access the betas.
We can also select the program in which we want to be if we are in both and corresponding beta updates will be released to us, as you can see in the item picture. This change will affect to all beta versions from iOS 16.4 including the entire period of iOS 17 developer betas starting in June after WWDC23.
