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Apple Seeds watchOS 27 Beta 2 to Developers

norm2816 said:
I don’t understand why all all three ultra watches can’t be supported with watchOS 27.. why is ultra one excluded?. and also why can’t I get this stupid update to work on my ultra two?? is beta two not out for the Ultra 2?
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Ultra 1 is not supported because of the chip that does not support AI.

Ultra 2 and 3 are supported. But beta 2 is not available yet for some reason. They probably discover a last minute issue with it. It’s still beta…
 
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DempaX said:
I hope they let older EU-devices use the version 27 since AI is blocked anyway. My original Watch Ultra is still so capable but Siri AI it does not need. However everything else would be nice.
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Oh, you sweet summer child. Apple doesn't get you to buy a new watch by making that Watch OS upgrade available to you just because the other AI features aren't.

There's no doubt Apple COULD make a version of Watch OS 27 that doesn't include the AI features and make it available to just people in the EU, but that's not the play.

See if it's available to you in the EU, they have to make it available to people elsewhere, and that doesn't fit the planned obsolescence model that Tim Cook is pushing as he heads for the exits.

Shame on Apple. The Ultra 1 should obviously be supported longer than it has. And security updates with no OS update falls short. Especially for an $800 wearable that's only at the longest 4 years old.

I like Apple products. I'll buy a new iPhone this year and all that. But I'm pretty sure my Ultra 1 is my last Apple Watch. I'll go back to my old Citizen watch I don't have to charge. Ever.

Every time I see this thing on my wrist, I feel like a sucker. That's not the emotional response you want to give customers who purchase your most expensive items.
 
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iPhonNick said:
No walkie talkie app, and double pressing the crown still doesn't open the app switcher.
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rutiger said:
I'm praying force close an app comes back. Having to do a full reboot every time the podcast app or some other app craps out is getting tiring.
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Yeah the app switcher missing for now two betas is concerning...and rather annoying. Same goes for the walkie talkie although an app switcher seems like mind-numbingly basic functionality
 
DaveMcM76 said:
🤞
Battery on my S10 wasn’t far off 26 for the first week of 27b1 so I had high hopes of it being ok but the second week I was seeing crazy drain. A restart would sort it out for a day or so and then crazy drain again.
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For me it instantly made me have to go from charging once a day to twice a day, and it stayed that way the whole time. At least it stayed very consistent, I guess. It’s the price of admission on the beta train sometimes.
 
IIGS User said:
Oh, you sweet summer child. Apple doesn't get you to buy a new watch by making that Watch OS upgrade available to you just because the other AI features aren't.

There's no doubt Apple COULD make a version of Watch OS 27 that doesn't include the AI features and make it available to just people in the EU, but that's not the play.

See if it's available to you in the EU, they have to make it available to people elsewhere, and that doesn't fit the planned obsolescence model that Tim Cook is pushing as he heads for the exits.

Shame on Apple. The Ultra 1 should obviously be supported longer than it has. And security updates with no OS update falls short. Especially for an $800 wearable that's only at the longest 4 years old.

I like Apple products. I'll buy a new iPhone this year and all that. But I'm pretty sure my Ultra 1 is my last Apple Watch. I'll go back to my old Citizen watch I don't have to charge. Ever.

Every time I see this thing on my wrist, I feel like a sucker. That's not the emotional response you want to give customers who purchase your most expensive items.
Click to expand...
Same. Every time an alert goes off I yell at it. Only using it for health features since it nags me to workout even when I don’t feel like it.
 
IIGS User said:
Oh, you sweet summer child. Apple doesn't get you to buy a new watch by making that Watch OS upgrade available to you just because the other AI features aren't.

There's no doubt Apple COULD make a version of Watch OS 27 that doesn't include the AI features and make it available to just people in the EU, but that's not the play.

See if it's available to you in the EU, they have to make it available to people elsewhere, and that doesn't fit the planned obsolescence model that Tim Cook is pushing as he heads for the exits.

Shame on Apple. The Ultra 1 should obviously be supported longer than it has. And security updates with no OS update falls short. Especially for an $800 wearable that's only at the longest 4 years old.

I like Apple products. I'll buy a new iPhone this year and all that. But I'm pretty sure my Ultra 1 is my last Apple Watch. I'll go back to my old Citizen watch I don't have to charge. Ever.

Every time I see this thing on my wrist, I feel like a sucker. That's not the emotional response you want to give customers who purchase your most expensive items.
Click to expand...
As the famous saying goes, never attribute something to malice that can be attributed to incompetence. AI wasn’t even on Apple’s roadmap until December 2022 when Craig Federighi saw a demo of Microsoft’s Co-pilot in operation. The Apple Watch Ultra 1 came out in September 2022, plus the Apple Watch 6, 7, and 8 had basically the same processor and RAM, just repackaged. The Apple Watch 9 was released in September 2023, after Apple revised their AI plans. That’s why it gets watchOS 27 and the earlier ones don’t. Up until the end of 2022, Apple was intent on their elementary machine learning, doing AI-like things without LLM’s, though. Had Apple ignored AI and continued on their pre-existing path, I’m sure watchOS 27 would have supported all of those watches. WatchOS 26 did, but that release didn’t really involve AI. For xOS 27, it is pretty much all about Siri. There isn’t much left in watchOS 27 if you take that out. Anything urgent will probably be taken care of through security patches, which will be supported for years to come. I think if Apple didn’t have a hope for bringing AI to China and the EU sometime in the next year, they probably wouldn’t even bother with xOS 27 in those regions.

Starting in early 2023, all of a sudden, their hardware requirements ramped up significantly, first requiring 8GB and now requiring 12GB, the latter after Apple abandoned their previous AI and was forced to go to Google for help. Apple simply didn’t plan for it ahead of time to avoid having to deprecate so many Apple Watches, iPads, iPhones, etc. Independent reviewers have shown there really aren’t very many features in these OS’s if you take out the new Siri, so they didn’t bother to extend the OS to the AI-incapable devices. The new AI plans were also instrumental in Apple’s sudden decision to make every Mac have a minimum of 16GB of RAM. It wasn’t out of generosity. It was out of necessity. Devices prior to that with less than 8GB were basically hung out to dry because of their poor planning. If Apple knew their requirements earlier, does anyone really think they would have left out the regular iPhone 16’s, limiting AI to just the Pros? That was the first evidence of poor planning. They were just lucky AS Macs always had at least 8GB, at least until AI 2.0 where their RAM requirement went up to 12GB after they got through with Google’s training models.

I think everyone can agree Apple has been pretty incompetent with regards to Siri and AI up until these particular xOS 27 releases. Apple as a company has a reputation for supporting aging products going back 7 or 8 years. But that’s when they actually successfully planned ahead. The lack of support for Watches U1, 6, 7, and 8 can easily be attributed to incompetence. They badly botched the rollout of Apple Intelligence and had to start over. These deprecated devices not getting xOS 27 is because they messed up so badly. With any other company, supporting a product for only 3 years is pretty much standard practice and no one would bat an eye. Because Apple generally supports for so much longer, it’s jarring and criticism-worthy.
 
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rutiger said:
I'm praying force close an app comes back. Having to do a full reboot every time the podcast app or some other app craps out is getting tiring.
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You can force close an app by putting the app in the foreground, pressing and holding the side button until the slide to power off screen comes up, and then pressing and holding the crown button until the app force-quits.
 
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ReliableSource said:
For me it instantly made me have to go from charging once a day to twice a day, and it stayed that way the whole time. At least it stayed very consistent, I guess. It’s the price of admission on the beta train sometimes.
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And oddly random. My S10 was on part with stable 26.
 
kalafalas said:
You can force close an app by putting the app in the foreground, pressing and holding the side button until the slide to power off screen comes up, and then pressing and holding the crown button until the app force-quits.
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Yep and this is not new to watchOS 27 either, I've been using this for a long time
 
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kalafalas said:
You can force close an app by putting the app in the foreground, pressing and holding the side button until the slide to power off screen comes up, and then pressing and holding the crown button until the app force-quits.
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Didn't know this (clearly). Will test it out. Appreciate the tip.
 
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