Well, Apple’s troubles aren’t going to end soon as the company has pulled watchOS 11.1 beta 3 update.
Apple Pulls watchOS 11.1 Beta 3 Update After Reports of Locked Apple Watch Devices
Released a couple of days ago, watchOS 11.1 beta 3 was a pretty smooth update for some people. However, some users started to report that the update is locking down their Apple Watches after installation, according to Aaron Perris on X.
When the device is completely locked up, there’s nothing a user can do to make it operational again. The only thing they can do is to perform a force restart and that isn’t the solution either since the Apple Watch ends up locking again.
In other words, the update basically makes the Apple Watch useless. What makes it worse is how you can’t downgrade the Apple Watch to an older firmware either. Apple simply doesn’t allow such a thing despite perfectly knowing issues may arise while testing betas.
Honestly, this does not paint a good picture at all. First, Apple pulled the iPadOS 18.0 update after news surfaced that it ended up bricking several M4 iPad Pro devices. Then we heard about how several HomePod mini devices were being bricked as well due to a botched HomePod beta update. How can I even forget iOS 18.0 which is a buggy mess for iPhone users.
It’s safe to say this is one of the messiest software launches from Apple in a long time. I have come across a lot of issues in the past, but this is a little too much.
Usually, after a major software launch, Apple follows it up quickly with a bug fix release. That’s nowhere in sight either. With reports currently flying around that iOS 18.0.1 will soon arrive to fix issues on iPhone and iPad devices, everyone is still waiting for the company to press the big green button.