Dan Moren, writing for Macworld:

My Apple Watch, much as I like it, is hardly an indispensable part of my everyday life. And ready I was to go ahead and install the watchOS 3 beta when I ran up against a bit of a brick wall—because in order to install the watchOS 3 beta, I also needed to install the iOS 10 beta on my iPhone.

It doesn’t stop there, either. Want to try out Apple’s new Auto Unlock feature? You’ll need to have the watchOS 3 beta installed and the macOS Sierra beta. Meanwhile, the automation features of HomeKit in iOS 10 take advantage of the fact that an Apple TV (or, optionally, an iPad) is always on and connected to your network to run routines as specific times. And the Universal Clipboard? Well, yeah, I think you can figure that out.

You see what I’m getting at: it’s all connected.

I love Dan’s name for all this: The Beta Cascade. Nailed it.

The problem with this approach is that some betas are more “ready for prime time” than others and some devices are more critical path than others.

I might have a spare iPad on which I can easily install an iOS beta, but only one iPhone, one I use every day. If I don’t have a spare MacBook, I’m less inclined to risk an install of the Sierra beta on my day-to-day machine. This is not Apple’s issue, it just goes to the new math that has to be done when deciding whether to install a new beta.

Welcome to the new beta reality.