While Apple announced iOS 17 during the WWDC 2023 event on June 5, a Developer Beta, usually made available behind a developer account, was made accessible to all a few days after, and already, a bug is causing problems for some.
According to users running iOS 17 Beta 1, sending an SMS causes iOS 17 to throw an error of "Message failed to send".
A developer beta is meant to be installed on tester iPhones to make sure that there are no bugs when running apps. Or if there are bugs, they can be squashed by the time the new update launches.
It's not something we ever recommend using on daily devices. But, Apple is also to blame here for how this was made available to everyone.
No SMS for you?
According to multiple reports on Reddit, it appears that for some people at least, the messages are actually being sent correctly. The recipient continues to receive the messages as expected, which is the main thing here. Unfortunately, there's no way to confirm that without calling the person you just sent an SMS to, somewhat defeating the whole point.
"Yeah was working fine sending texts and now bam failed to send but is actually sending multiple copies of the same text, I’m on ATT btw," one user posted. "So apparently the messages still go through. I asked my friend and he said he got the message although it’s still showing as unable to deliver," another Reddit user commented.
Now is probably a very good time to remind everyone that this is the first developer beta of iOS 17 and that bugs are to be expected. We strongly suggest that iOS 17 is only installed on test devices right now, and it should absolutely not be installed on devices that are mission-critical.
Apple hasn't confirmed exactly when iOS 17 will be released to the public, but we expect it in or around September. That's also when we expect Apple to announce the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro lineups, too.
