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.
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.
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.