Apple Watch Series 3 owners are complaining of random reboots and other annoying bugs since upgrading to watchOS 7.
Since the operating system's release on Sept. 16, folks sporting the third-generation wearable have taken to the web, bemoaning regular crashes, failures, and disconnections, not to mention a huge battery drain.
"My Series 3 completed an auto update overnight to watchOS 7," user Tjay64 wrote earlier this month in an Apple Support forum thread. "Today it has shut itself down at least three times, locked itself while on my wrist about four times, failed to load complications on multiple faces (weather, activity rings, date, etc.), [and] disconnected from my phone at least twice.
"It has also dropped to less than 50 percent battery in about eight hours," they continued, claiming that by that point, "normally it is still in the 80s." Tjay64's comments, posted on Sept. 18, garnered 15 pages of comments, mostly lamenting the same issues.
"I've had several reboots a day since updating," Joe_Tarpy wrote in response. "It asks me for my passcode and shows blank stats on activity. Never had an issue like this before on watchOS 6 or earlier." On the plus side, their device's battery life has improved, lasting two days between charges. "But maybe that's because it's rebooting and not working as much" the post suggested.
A thread on the MacRumors forum features much of the same frustration over incompatibility between watchOS 7 and Apple Watch Series 3. The worst part: there's no way to downgrade back to watchOS 6, so once you've updated, you're stuck until Cupertino issues a patch. Users claim this week's release of watchOS 7.0.1 did not solve their problems.
Alongside a seemingly buggy operating system, Apple this month unveiled a pair of next-generation wearables—Watch Series 6 (starting at $399) and Watch SE (starting at $279)—boasting new features like a blood oxygen sensor, Family Setup, and more color options.