Up until now, Apple has kept beta versions of major iOS releases locked away behind its $99-a-year developer paywall. You didn't need to actually be a developer to sign up for an account and play with the software, but you either needed to pay up or violate the terms of use by getting someone else to set you up.

This year, that changes. Apple has released a public beta of iOS 9 to anyone who wants to try it out, no strings attached. This preview is for people who want to know what they're getting before they install the beta and for people who want to know what's coming without putting work-in-progress software on their own phones.

This preview will skip many of the lower-level things we normally cover in our iOS reviews, including performance, battery life, general stability, and the amount of storage space used, as well as some security features and new APIs. Many of these things are subject to change as the software becomes more mature, so we'll pay thorough attention to them in the full review this fall.

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Listing image by Andrew Cunningham