Usually at least one of our applications will have a prerelease test version available. We’re not always in need of external testers, but when we’re looking for feedback on bug fixes or new features, we’ll publicly or privately open the test feed so we can try our latest changes out in the wild.
To stay on top of test announcements, we recommend keeping an eye on our Twitter account and blog.
If you’d like to help us test our apps, please make sure you’re comfortable with buggy software and you back up important data regularly. Also, make sure you’re in a position where you have internet access and can install/check for updates regularly. Test builds automatically expire after a few weeks, so if you frequently travel without internet access, we may recommend staying on the official shipping release track to avoid getting locked out of the app.
How Can I Participate on iOS?
Starting with iOS 8, we’ve been using Apple’s TestFlight Beta Testing program, which enables us to invite a limited number of iOS users to test in-development apps. To see what we’re working on for iOS, or to volunteer for future rounds of testing, check out our Omni TestFlights page.
How Can I Participate on Mac?
First, you’ll need to have purchased our app directly from the Omni Store. Test builds require a license in order to run. Sorry, Mac App Store customers will not have a license and will be unable to run prerelease test builds.
The primary place we announce Mac test builds is on Twitter. When we’re looking for external testers, we’ll post a link to the OmniStaging distribution site where you can access the latest builds.
Once you’ve installed a test build, our built-in software updater will continue offering test releases for that app whenever available, as well as official GM releases. You can tell it’s a test release by the name of the update, which will include “test” and a revision number. While running the test builds, you can also use our updater to downgrade to the latest prior stable release.
If you’re on a stable release and are offered a test update—but you no longer wish to use test builds—you can update your test preferences by using the Ignore buttons below the version number. This tells our software updater how you want to handle future test updates.
