Installing WatchOS 2 - Slow!

[convergent]

I just picked up a new Apple Watch Sport SG at the Apple Store yesterday and got home with it at 5pm. After a few minutes of pairing and fiddling, I set to upgrade WatchOS. After over an hour of frustration with it first telling me I needed to delete apps to have room to install it (clearly not the case based on Usage) and then a period of time when it kept saying it lost communications with the watch, I decided to do a reset to factory and start over.

The second time through, I decided not to let it install any apps on the watch to avoid that problem, and I started the upgrade immediately. That was about 6:30pm I think. As of 1am, it still said it had 3 hours remaining on the "downloading" step. I wasn't going to pull an all nighter for my watch, so went to bed. When I woke up, it had finishing installing and after a bit of fiddling I got the watch to ask me if it could install. About another hour later it finally finished verifying and I had to go put it on the charger to get it to try to load, even though the battery was 100%. Another half hour I came back and it was done.

I don't usually whine and complain about this kind of thing, but this is pretty much ridiculous and I doubt the average non-geek buyer is going to be this patient. Buying what is probably one of the most popular models, I'm kind of surprised it wasn't updated already. This to me is an indication that sales must not be that awesome if the inventory turns are so low that they still don't have them updated on the shelf.

Now to figure out if I really want to keep this and use it.

 

[SlyMaster13]

I just picked up a new Apple Watch Sport SG at the Apple Store yesterday and got home with it at 5pm. After a few minutes of pairing and fiddling, I set to upgrade WatchOS. After over an hour of frustration with it first telling me I needed to delete apps to have room to install it (clearly not the case based on Usage) and then a period of time when it kept saying it lost communications with the watch, I decided to do a reset to factory and start over.

The second time through, I decided not to let it install any apps on the watch to avoid that problem, and I started the upgrade immediately. That was about 6:30pm I think. As of 1am, it still said it had 3 hours remaining on the "downloading" step. I wasn't going to pull an all nighter for my watch, so went to bed. When I woke up, it had finishing installing and after a bit of fiddling I got the watch to ask me if it could install. About another hour later it finally finished verifying and I had to go put it on the charger to get it to try to load, even though the battery was 100%. Another half hour I came back and it was done.

I don't usually whine and complain about this kind of thing, but this is pretty much ridiculous and I doubt the average non-geek buyer is going to be this patient. Buying what is probably one of the most popular models, I'm kind of surprised it wasn't updated already. This to me is an indication that sales must not be that awesome if the inventory turns are so low that they still don't have them updated on the shelf.

Now to figure out if I really want to keep this and use it.

The update for my watch took about 2 hours or so. This was a big update for Apple but Ill admit, the update time was a little ridiculous. Just be patient, I think you will like the changes.

 

[Grayhair]

I've been trying to download it to my watch for the past three hours. Still stuck on verify mode. Apple blew this one. $1000 watch that doesn't want to receive the download and is just a gimmick warch.

 

[Newtons Apple]

It IS slow but you are dealing with a very slow processor. Mine seemed to take forever. Just rebooting the watch takes a lot of time.

 

[testcard]

I had the "stuck on verify" issue during the upgrade. Try exiting the Watch app altogether and starting over. Second attempt succeeded for me.

 

[Grayhair]

Still in verify mode. I would not have purchased this thing if I only knew then what I know now.

 

[Grayhair]

I just picked up a new Apple Watch Sport SG at the Apple Store yesterday and got home with it at 5pm. After a few minutes of pairing and fiddling, I set to upgrade WatchOS. After over an hour of frustration with it first telling me I needed to delete apps to have room to install it (clearly not the case based on Usage) and then a period of time when it kept saying it lost communications with the watch, I decided to do a reset to factory and start over.

The second time through, I decided not to let it install any apps on the watch to avoid that problem, and I started the upgrade immediately. That was about 6:30pm I think. As of 1am, it still said it had 3 hours remaining on the "downloading" step. I wasn't going to pull an all nighter for my watch, so went to bed. When I woke up, it had finishing installing and after a bit of fiddling I got the watch to ask me if it could install. About another hour later it finally finished verifying and I had to go put it on the charger to get it to try to load, even though the battery was 100%. Another half hour I came back and it was done.

I don't usually whine and complain about this kind of thing, but this is pretty much ridiculous and I doubt the average non-geek buyer is going to be this patient. Buying what is probably one of the most popular models, I'm kind of surprised it wasn't updated already. This to me is an indication that sales must not be that awesome if the inventory turns are so low that they still don't have them updated on the shelf.

Now to figure out if I really want to keep this and use it.

 

[Grayhair]

Get rid of it while you can. I would if I could but to late for me. Wasted $1000

 

[artfossil]

I just picked up a new Apple Watch Sport SG at the Apple Store yesterday and got home with it at 5pm. After a few minutes of pairing and fiddling, I set to upgrade WatchOS. After over an hour of frustration with it first telling me I needed to delete apps to have room to install it (clearly not the case based on Usage) and then a period of time when it kept saying it lost communications with the watch, I decided to do a reset to factory and start over.

The second time through, I decided not to let it install any apps on the watch to avoid that problem, and I started the upgrade immediately. That was about 6:30pm I think. As of 1am, it still said it had 3 hours remaining on the "downloading" step. I wasn't going to pull an all nighter for my watch, so went to bed. When I woke up, it had finishing installing and after a bit of fiddling I got the watch to ask me if it could install. About another hour later it finally finished verifying and I had to go put it on the charger to get it to try to load, even though the battery was 100%. Another half hour I came back and it was done.

I don't usually whine and complain about this kind of thing, but this is pretty much ridiculous and I doubt the average non-geek buyer is going to be this patient. Buying what is probably one of the most popular models, I'm kind of surprised it wasn't updated already. This to me is an indication that sales must not be that awesome if the inventory turns are so low that they still don't have them updated on the shelf.

Now to figure out if I really want to keep this and use it.

I too was stuck on "Verifying." After trying the "turn off and reboot both phone and watch" suggestion, which did not help, I contacted Apple support.

Apple Support told me to go to Useage in the Watch app and trash the update. Once I did that and started the update process, the whole thing, including downloading the update and installing, took just under an hour.

 

[Mr.C]

I just picked up a new Apple Watch Sport SG at the Apple Store yesterday and got home with it at 5pm. After a few minutes of pairing and fiddling, I set to upgrade WatchOS. After over an hour of frustration with it first telling me I needed to delete apps to have room to install it (clearly not the case based on Usage) and then a period of time when it kept saying it lost communications with the watch, I decided to do a reset to factory and start over.

The second time through, I decided not to let it install any apps on the watch to avoid that problem, and I started the upgrade immediately. That was about 6:30pm I think. As of 1am, it still said it had 3 hours remaining on the "downloading" step. I wasn't going to pull an all nighter for my watch, so went to bed. When I woke up, it had finishing installing and after a bit of fiddling I got the watch to ask me if it could install. About another hour later it finally finished verifying and I had to go put it on the charger to get it to try to load, even though the battery was 100%. Another half hour I came back and it was done.

I don't usually whine and complain about this kind of thing, but this is pretty much ridiculous and I doubt the average non-geek buyer is going to be this patient. Buying what is probably one of the most popular models, I'm kind of surprised it wasn't updated already. This to me is an indication that sales must not be that awesome if the inventory turns are so low that they still don't have them updated on the shelf.

Now to figure out if I really want to keep this and use it.

Your comment on the inventory in relation to OS version doesn't make sense as there is no correlation. There is usually a long lead time between the manufacture of the watch and it reaching store shelves. It's not uncommon with regards to devices that have software updates for there to be some lag between a new OS version being released and supply of the device with the new OS preloaded appearing on store shelves. This happens with iPhone too except when a new model is released just after a major new OS update like with the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus which shipped with iOS 9.

 

[Bigdog9586]

It took me a good two hours too and I have a fast connection speed but the time between iPhone and watch is the hold up.

 

[LiemTa]

It IS slow but you are dealing with a very slow processor. Mine seemed to take forever. Just rebooting the watch takes a lot of time.

The processor is on par with the 5s

 

[pommie82]

When i downloaded the update when it was release it took me about 1 hour to download all together because i have
slow internet connection here "4.5mb per second"

When finished downloading the software it took about 45 mins to transfer the file on to the watch bearing in mind i had to keep it charging to install the software or it wouldn't work at all.

 

[LoveToMacRumors]

The S1 cpu chip can only do this much

 

[bandrews]

Get rid of it while you can. I would if I could but to late for me. Wasted $1000

I've been trying to download it to my watch for the past three hours. Still stuck on verify mode. Apple blew this one. $1000 watch that doesn't want to receive the download and is just a gimmick warch.

Still in verify mode. I would not have purchased this thing if I only knew then what I know now.

Overreaction much? It's an OS update. Not like you'll be doing it every day.