Did watchOS 10 ruin my Apple Watch on purpose?

[Silly John Fatty]

I have an AW Series 6 that had watchOS 8 on it until recently, and I upgraded to watchOS 10.

Let's put all the features and the new things aside on which we could argue which are an improvement and which are not.

I noticed that the actual reaction of my AW has become worse with watchOS 10. Scrolling doesn't work as well (it's glitchy and laggy) and tapping on it to turn it on often doesn't work (I'll have to tap several times, and tap harder).

I'm just wondering about why things like this could suddenly become worse with a new update. It reminds me of keyboard lag on iPhones or iPads and I'm wondering if Apple might not cause this on purpose.

It's relatable if your device can't run new features because they require more CPU, GPU, RAM, or whatever. But scrolling, or tapping to turn on your Apple Watch? Did the new watchOS introduce new technology that makes turning on your AW or scrolling through it suddenly a CPU-intensive process, or what? You'd think this process is staying the same.

The correlation and synchrony with which it happens with Apple products just makes me think it must be on purpose.

Has anyone else experienced this?

It's an AW series 6 and I jumped from wOS 8 to wOS 10.

 

[ATmahe]

The Apple Watch Series 6 of my partner works fine with watchOS 10.
Same for mine, but I only use it while my Ultra2 is charging.

 

[arc of the universe]

I have an AW Series 6 that had watchOS 8 on it until recently, and I upgraded to watchOS 10.

Let's put all the features and the new things aside on which we could argue which are an improvement and which are not.

I noticed that the actual reaction of my AW has become worse with watchOS 10. Scrolling doesn't work as well (it's glitchy and laggy) and tapping on it to turn it on often doesn't work (I'll have to tap several times, and tap harder).

I'm just wondering about why things like this could suddenly become worse with a new update. It reminds me of keyboard lag on iPhones or iPads and I'm wondering if Apple might not cause this on purpose.

It's relatable if your device can't run new features because they require more CPU, GPU, RAM, or whatever. But scrolling, or tapping to turn on your Apple Watch? Did the new watchOS introduce new technology that makes turning on your AW or scrolling through it suddenly a CPU-intensive process, or what? You'd think this process is staying the same.

The correlation and synchrony with which it happens with Apple products just makes me think it must be on purpose.

Has anyone else experienced this?

It's an AW series 6 and I jumped from wOS 8 to wOS 10.

you aren't mistaken in your impressions.

when apple announced Series 9, the top feature that was always being noted was it having a faster CPU.
i have a Series 8. i have not detected any additional lag after installing WatchOS 10 on it.
however, even a Series 8 has occasions where it is not able to keep up immediately when two things are happening in succession to each other. its most noticeable when there are two or more notifications that occur within a second of each other. often need to wait two or three seconds before any of the notifications can be read.

OS task management always needs to generally match processing speed (else, all people would have the same frustrating impressions as you have). with the future launch of Series 10/X or whatever, apple will more broadly take advantage of these faster CPUs. this means all earlier Series will begin to feel slower. the practical implication being that Watches that are (only) 4 years old or possibly even 3 years old may feel too slow.
we will know soon, with beta launches of WatchOS 11.

every month i use my Watch i am using it in more and more of the available ways. im using so many of its functions that these days i run out of battery by early evening. although CPU speed and battery arent necessarily 1 for 1 related, i think that i might need to get the larger Ultra as apple makes the Watch more and more easy to use.
a lot of people complained that WatchOS 10 made viewing info more disjointed and more difficult to see broader range of limited info per screen. this is true. but for me, WatchOS 10 provides the ability to see more info on one screen that can be very specific. navigation is more difficult (maybe).

i would have liked to not need to buy a Watch every 3 years, but it looks like that's probably the buying schedule i will need to live with in order to enjoy using it.

 

[kitKAC]

The Apple Watch Series 6 of my partner works fine with watchOS 10.
Same for mine, but I only use it while my Ultra2 is charging.

Same here, series 6 with watchOS 10, perfectly fine.

 

[tranceking26]

tapping on it to turn it on often doesn't work (I'll have to tap several times, and tap harder).

My SE 2 is mostly fine, but this happens to me too, I have to tap a few times. On watchOS 9 this wasn't an issue.

 

[cubodado]

My Series 6 with WatchOS 10 is doing fine. New battery helps though I guess.

 

[Howard2k]

I have an AW Series 6 that had watchOS 8 on it until recently, and I upgraded to watchOS 10.

Let's put all the features and the new things aside on which we could argue which are an improvement and which are not.

I noticed that the actual reaction of my AW has become worse with watchOS 10. Scrolling doesn't work as well (it's glitchy and laggy) and tapping on it to turn it on often doesn't work (I'll have to tap several times, and tap harder).

I'm just wondering about why things like this could suddenly become worse with a new update. It reminds me of keyboard lag on iPhones or iPads and I'm wondering if Apple might not cause this on purpose.

It's relatable if your device can't run new features because they require more CPU, GPU, RAM, or whatever. But scrolling, or tapping to turn on your Apple Watch? Did the new watchOS introduce new technology that makes turning on your AW or scrolling through it suddenly a CPU-intensive process, or what? You'd think this process is staying the same.

The correlation and synchrony with which it happens with Apple products just makes me think it must be on purpose.

Has anyone else experienced this?

It's an AW series 6 and I jumped from wOS 8 to wOS 10.

New features take more processing power. Apple could either 1) not give you the features, or 2) give you the features and there is a processing hit that comes with it. Either way, people will complain. It's not really possible for Apple to add material new features that don't take extra processor cycles.

All the same, also worth giving the watch a restart just in case there are lagging processes that didn't close properly.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

New features take more processing power.

You can argue that for newly introduced features that e.g. need additional CPU power, but waking your watch by tapping on it or scrolling through menus isn't exactly a new feature I'd say 🤣 And so it's very suspicious that these core functionalities are being slowed down. There's absolutely no technical reason for this to happen, so it looks very "artificially provoked" to me.

And it matters a lot, because legally, in the European Union, giving your customers an update that purposely makes their device slower would fall under something like purposely damaging their property.

Legally, it would be comparable to me being a car repair shop and offering you an upgrade for your car (a new stereo system), but at the same time also throttling the horse power of your vehicle.

Apple is acting more and more like a dirty criminal in my eyes.

 

[Howard2k]

You can argue that for newly introduced features that e.g. need additional CPU power, but waking your watch by tapping on it or scrolling through menus isn't exactly a new feature I'd say 🤣 And so it's very suspicious that these core functionalities are being slowed down. There's absolutely no technical reason for this to happen, so it looks very "artificially provoked" to me.

And it matters a lot, because legally, in the European Union, giving your customers an update that purposely makes their device slower would fall under something like purposely damaging their property.

Legally, it would be comparable to me being a car repair shop and offering you an upgrade for your car (a new stereo system), but at the same time also throttling the horse power of your vehicle.

Apple is acting more and more like a dirty criminal in my eyes.

But the watch is also doing stuff in the background. Widgets for example. And perhaps they added extra complexity to some of the other algorithms in the background. So while it may not be a direct UI impact, it might have some. So all the same, nothing is free.

I’m speculating but I do have some experience in development. Not a huge amount, but a little.

I’m sure that if I’m wrong it will be super easy for this to be demonstrated and we’ll all win as Apple is taken to court and the case is proven based on facts.

 

[jbkendrick]

Why not just turn auto updates off and stay on an earlier version if your hardware is not up to the new OS's. Should Apple handicap the OS for an unlimited time in order to allow those that have older hardware to continue to upgrade. They could stop supporting older hardware except with security updates. That would no doubt satisfy any complaints by the EU, but then customers would still be complaining. Not sure there is any win for Apple here. J