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Apple has pulled the latest watchOS 11.1 beta 3 update due to unspecified but apparently rather severe bugs in the software that froze the devices of those who installed it on their Apple Watch.
Apple Watch Series 10 (42mm)
GPS, Bluetooth, Rose Gold Aluminum Case, Light Blush Sport Band, LTPO3 OLED Always-On Retina Display with Up to 2000 Nits Brightness, ECG, High and Low Heart Rate Notifications, Sleep Tracking, Sleep Apnea Notifications, Temperature Sensing, Cycle Tracking, Emergency SOS, Fall Detection, Crash Detection, Water Resistant Up to 50 Meters, Swimproof, Depth Gauge, S10 Processor, Double Tap Gesture, Up to 18 Hours of Battery Life, Faster Charging
Instead of bringing new features, the watchOS 11.1 beta 3 update was rather dedicated to optimizing code and niche activities like fixing the bug where "rectangular complications and Watch-specific custom Live Activity views use the wrong font metrics, causing title2 and title3 to render much larger than intended and largeTitle to render much smaller than intended."
Apple pulled the latest watchOS 11 beta update as it bricked Watches. | Image credit – Apple
One of those resolutions, however, must have reared its ugly coding head and essentially bricked the Apple Watch gear that ran it. That's a serious problem for owners, as they now have to bring their Apple Watch to a Store or an authorized repair center to put it back into operation, as they can't just roll back to the older firmware.
Something similar happened to the iPadOS 18 update that froze the iPad Pro models with the latest Apple M4 processor a couple of weeks back and Apple had to pull than one as well and owners are still waiting on a patch to be released.
Apple is now forking its code to tailor it to each individual device form factor it has, and even thinking of creating a separate homeOS operating system for its smart home gear, so it has to coordinate a lot of software teams and a lot of code.
Still, it takes quite a bit of time to issue patches or rewrite the code, so those owners who are already experiencing the various bugs that the WatchOS 11 beta introduced aren't in for a respite any time soon.
"Looks like they’ve pulled the beta," writes one user, and adds that "messages would keep loading before being killed by the watchdog daemon for taking too long," and "trying to enter Privacy & Security in Settings also locks up watchOS... [which] occasionally leads to a respring."
According to the developed, "the logs suggests there’s an issue in the Screen Time process, presumably when it’s trying to log what you’re doing on the watch, that causes this," so this might explain why Apple pulled the latest watchOS beta and is now mulling how to resolve the issues.
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Daniel, a devoted tech writer at PhoneArena since 2010, has been engrossed in mobile technology since the Windows Mobile era. His expertise spans mobile hardware, software, and carrier networks, and he's keenly interested in the future of digital health, car connectivity, and 5G. Beyond his professional pursuits, Daniel finds balance in travel, reading, and exploring new tech innovations, while contemplating the ethical and privacy implications of our digital future.
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