Apple is going to start a public-beta program for its mobile operating system iOS following a hugely successful OS X Yosemite public-beta involving one million users.

The program will allow users to download early builds of the OS capable of reporting bug fixes and playing around with some of the new features and sending feedback on any ideas.

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Microsoft is already running its own beta-testing program for Windows 10 on both desktop and mobile that allows 'Insiders' to scope out the new operating system.

The first iteration of this program will be available in March for iOS 8 followed by the launch of iOS 9 in the summer. Apple will seed this to public-beta testers shortly after WWDC 2015 in June, perhaps on the same day to get developers excited.

Not only does this give developers more chances to get involved with the OS, it gives everyday Apple fans the chance to be part of the development and bug fixing cycle.

While this might not sound like fun to many iPhone users, it's a dream come true for others. Millions of people get involved in public and private betas of games and applications and platforms should be treated no differently.

Apple will only offer 100,000 spots on its public-beta program for iOS thereby making it an exclusive club dedicated to sniffing out bugs and performance issues.

Considering Apple sold 74 million iPhones in Q4 2014 alone, alongside over 10 million iPads in 2014, it's clear more than 100,000 people will want in on the public-beta so these spaces will be in limited supply.

Public-beta programs for platforms seem to be the new way to analyze data and wipe out bugs before the official release rather than hiding all information behind NDA agreements and office walls.

TagsWWDC 2015, public-beta program, iOS 9, iOS 8.3