I’m surprised they don’t have the cable to reload the software at the genius bar like DFU.
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watchOS 5.1 - I think my watch is bricked
- Thread starter Bazooka-joe
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I would hope not. That's well below his pay grade. That guy better be working on bigger things.
Pretty much every CEO in every publicly traded company makes decisions as how to engage the company in a way to be profitable in all aspects. Not hard to understand a simple concept that doesn’t need a scintilla of evidence.
I have a love hate relationship with this whole fiasco.
Hated the paperweight I had for about 15 hours. Hated having to spend half my day sorting everything out.
Love my new Nike + Apple Watch and love the fact that I got a one month loaner of my old Apple Watch (gold aluminum which I regretted but didn’t return) and one month of AC+ all for free LOL
Hated the paperweight I had for about 15 hours. Hated having to spend half my day sorting everything out.
Love my new Nike + Apple Watch and love the fact that I got a one month loaner of my old Apple Watch (gold aluminum which I regretted but didn’t return) and one month of AC+ all for free LOL
That's been the crux of my argument and I hope they think about this in the future...I've bricked all sorts of gadgets in the past and having a quick way to bail yourself out always helps. Truth be told, I think these threads would've been done had people been able to make Genius Bar appointments for a reflash.
You put the right people in place to make the right decisions. You don’t make every decision, but you hold them accountable when they make the wrong decision.
Some of them go on to produce broadway musicals, and some of them get fired from furniture stores in the UK.
T
The people Tim puts in charge of each department ultimately come back to him before finality of any company move(s).
Let’s just keep the subject on point in this thread and that has to do with replacement of the watches. And my particular statement first dealt with Tim making a public announcement and actually had nothing to do with day to day departmental decision making.
The people Tim puts in charge of each department ultimately come back to him before finality of any company move(s).
Let’s just keep the subject on point in this thread and that has to do with replacement of the watches. And my particular statement first dealt with Tim making a public announcement and actually had nothing to do with day to day departmental decision making.
Hold both buttons down till it reboots. Do it again immediately when you see the Apple logo again. When it goes dark, let go of the buttons. It should stay off. Someone suggested this to me earlier and it worked for me.
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The official response to this seems to be slow going through their support system. I did it originally by phone, and the person on the other end treated it as a unique issue personal to my watch and sent me an email to set up payment with Apple for the repair (even though it would still be under limited warranty). After I started reading that this was a relatively widespread phenomenon, I contacted their support through Twitter (partly to have a written record of their response). They looked up my original assigned Repair ID and cancelled it. Then they sent a new email with a new Repair ID that said the repair (via mail-in) would be free unless there were signs that it was physically damaged. Their problem description reads: systemwide error - frozen - Apple Logo. I never used this language, particularly “frozen”, so I’m guessing this is how they are describing it internally. Unless you have AppleCare+ (with its expedited replacement), this is probably the method a majority of these bricked watches will get fixed.
That is really stupid they should’ve swapped it out there the one to provide a warranty.
On the good news side of this fiasco, there will be a TON of WATCH Series 4 refurbs on discount for sale on the Apple online store a few months from now (or maybe even sooner).
There is such a cable but apple only use it internally. They don’t sell to the public.
However you can get an ibus for the S0-S3 to do dfu.
https://www.mfcbox.com/blog/how-to-use-ibus-tool-to-restore-an-apple-watch-on-/
Not sure if it works on the S4 though.
And check out their cool video of restoring apple watch via itunes:
This is actually a hidden feature of itunes not many people know about.
They would be familiar with a similar thing for ios devices for example.
But usually only apple staff use this itunes feature as applied to apple watch.
But if you have an ibus you can do it yourself.
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Similar experience yesterday in that the first Apple Store tech I spoke to was unaware of the problem, but when he referred it to the Genius Bar tech, they gave me an immediate like-for-like replacement. Top marks where it's warranted.
My watch should reach Apples returns centre today and my replacement is stuck at processing. November 15-22nd. It’s an inconvenience but will be sorted and I should have a new watch within the next fortnight.
As I said in an earlier post, what concerns me more than anything is the lack of leadership from Apple with this matter. There is no evidence of anyone in Apple taking control of this problem and that is clearly evident in the fact that the posts on this thread clearly show that different people are getting different responses from Apple support in the stores and support centres. As soon as Apple acknowledged the problem and withdrew the update, they should have ensured that a corporate message went out across their frontline services detailing a customer response to ensure consistency so that every customer is treated the same.
Perception without prejudice suggests that senior management at Apple are very good at shouting Apples successes but a lack of a public response from Tim and his cohort also suggests that really, they don't care about customer contact once they have our money and leave it to operational staff to deal with us.
It may only be a small percentage of people that have this issue but strong sales and long wait times, means that small percentage could equate to tens's of thousands of people worldwide
Apple will replace our watches as they should but it would be nice to have a public response from Apple or even a personal email to those affected with an apology from Apple. That should be part of standard customer service.
As I said in an earlier post, what concerns me more than anything is the lack of leadership from Apple with this matter. There is no evidence of anyone in Apple taking control of this problem and that is clearly evident in the fact that the posts on this thread clearly show that different people are getting different responses from Apple support in the stores and support centres. As soon as Apple acknowledged the problem and withdrew the update, they should have ensured that a corporate message went out across their frontline services detailing a customer response to ensure consistency so that every customer is treated the same.
Perception without prejudice suggests that senior management at Apple are very good at shouting Apples successes but a lack of a public response from Tim and his cohort also suggests that really, they don't care about customer contact once they have our money and leave it to operational staff to deal with us.
It may only be a small percentage of people that have this issue but strong sales and long wait times, means that small percentage could equate to tens's of thousands of people worldwide
Apple will replace our watches as they should but it would be nice to have a public response from Apple or even a personal email to those affected with an apology from Apple. That should be part of standard customer service.
From reading the posts in this thread and in the watchOS 5.1 Update Bricking Some Apple Watches [Update: Apple Temporarily Pulls watchOS 5.1] news thread, it seems there are a lot of MR members with bricked S4 Apple Watches. There are also members posting to say their updates were sucessful but they don't seem to outnumber those with the bricked watches.
People who post on tech forums will probably be more likely to update their software as soon as it becomes available so you would expect a higher percentage of our members to be affected but it's still an indication of a fairly widespread problem for Apple to fix.
Maybe. But more than ever, because of issues like this with iOS and watchOS having these intermittent glitches that our freezing these devices are becoming more problematic, which is indicative that other members are no longer updating on day one as much as you’re projecting. I think it’s becoming to the point now where you’re having those who wait days/weeks to see what general reports prior to updating, because The hassle of sending in a brand new Apple Watch to Apple Watch is completely inconveniencing And taking way from the user experience.
Granted, we all know software isn’t perfect, but the fact that Apple had to “Pull” this update is exactly why I won’t update on ‘Day one’ anymore with _any_ of my devices. Not acceptable to me, even though I know they will make the situation whole.
Indeed and for me who has always had the confidence in Apple to be an early upgrader, I for one, am taking this as a lesson learnt and will be holding back on future upgrades for a week or so until I know that there are no issues. Its just not worth the risk and hassle of devices becoming inefficient for the sake of obtaining new functionality as soon as its available.
I use the same philosophy but you only have to read the first couple of pages of any news thread announcing a new iOS, MacOS or watchOS update to see how many of our members install it as soon as it becomes available.
I normally install production updates straight away, but always wait until Beta 2 or 3 on major updates (watch included). Feel like I have dodged a bullet here on my S4, although i am still in the 14 day return window, so probably would have used it as an excuse to get a SS gold
Note to self...don't be tempted, I am upgrading to a S5 when it comes out and it is a waste of money
Note to self...don't be tempted, I am upgrading to a S5 when it comes out and it is a waste of money
People are also way more likely to report problems than successes. My SS S4 44mm LTE upgraded just fine to watchOS 5.1.
I'm only even reading this thread because I am curious what caused some to brick in the first place, but if I had to guess, this was probably only bricking 1% of devices or less.
A couple things:
1. Apple should make the service port accessible to customers. Simple DFU and reflash to 5.0.1 would solve everyone's problem. At least give end users the option to do this.
2. Note to self....if there's no replacements available in store, don't update until the sw has been beta tested by day one upgraders. I'll continue to update my iPhone day one...if it bricks, I waltz into the apple store and get a replacement unit. Since there's no in store replacement units with the watch (and it's basically a return and re-buy), my risk tolerance goes down.
1. Apple should make the service port accessible to customers. Simple DFU and reflash to 5.0.1 would solve everyone's problem. At least give end users the option to do this.
2. Note to self....if there's no replacements available in store, don't update until the sw has been beta tested by day one upgraders. I'll continue to update my iPhone day one...if it bricks, I waltz into the apple store and get a replacement unit. Since there's no in store replacement units with the watch (and it's basically a return and re-buy), my risk tolerance goes down.