OuriOS 10 Previewseriesdetailedmore than two dozen new features and refinements spotted in iOS 10 beta 3, which was seeded to Apple’s registered developers yesterday. Today, we take a closer look at a dozen or so fixes that were added in the third beta of watchOS 3 (build number “14S5290d”), resolving various issues with Apple Watch features that developers reported in prior betas. No new features have been found in watchOS 3 beta 3 yet.
watchOS 3 beta 3 video walkthrough
Here’s our resident video editor and gadgets reviewer Andrew O’Hara showing you twelve fixes in the third beta of watchOS 3. The clip runs three minutes and 33 seconds long, give it a watch right now and then read the rest of the article for other tidbits.
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A few noteworthy observations regarding beta 3 quirks.
If you cannot use Time Travel in beta 3, re-enable it in the Watch companion app on your iPhone by setting the slider inMy Watch → Clock → Time Travelto the ON position.
If you cannot unlock your Mac with your Apple Watch after updating to beta 3, re-enable the feature on macOS Sierra: go toSystem Preferences → Security & Privacy → Generaland tick the box next to “Allow Your Apple Watch to Unlock Your Mac”.
And last but not least, you may notice that battery life has actually worsened in beta 3.
This is nothing to write home about: optimizations for speed and energy consumption are added as the last step ahead of a Golden Master candidate, after all of the new features have been completed, tweaked, thoroughly tested and locked.
For those wondering, watchOS betas are not available for public beta-testing.
Everything fixed in watchOS 3 beta 3
The following has been fixed in watchOS 3 beta 3:
Connectivity
Emergency SOS
Notifications
watchOS 3: the coolest new features
Since the first beta of watchOS 3 released at WWDC 2016, we took it for a spin and published detailed video walkthroughs of some of the most exciting new features.
Faster performance, Instant Launch & simpler navigation
A creative destruction of the Apple Watch operating system, watch OS 3 does a lot of things right by enabling faster performance, simplified navigation and launching your favorite apps instantly via a new Dock feature.
For detailed overview of these features,check out this article.
New watch faces & Face Gallery on iPhone
watchOS 3 adds three new watch faces and a Face Gallery section on the companion Watch app. Additionally, you can now launch more apps via complications from faces like Workout, Music and Messages and use complications on faces that didn’t support them in prior watchOS editions, like Photo, Motion and Timelapse.
Emergency SOS, Activity Sharing, Auto Unlock & more
watchOS 3 includes an Emergency SOS feature that could save your life, sharing Activity rings with other people and the ability to unlock your Mac by wearing your watch, all of which were added in beta 2 along with a bunch of other fixes and under-the-hood tweaks shown in this video.
iDB previews Apple’s OS updates
We’ve made it a mission to dive deep into Apple’s upcoming software updates to give you a feel for any major new features and little things that might delight you.
Check out our iOS 10, macOS Sierra, tvOS 10 and watchOS 3 previews:
macOS Sierra
Additional previews will be added to these lists as they’re published. To help our future coverage detail other features, email us attips@idownloadblog.com. We’ll take any reasonable suggestions into consideration.
watchOS 3 availability
watchOS 3 betas along with WatchKit for watchOS 3 are available to iOS Developer Program members atApple’s portal for developers. It’ll officially release for public consumption in the fall as a free software update to the Apple Watch.
Did we miss anything?
We may have overlooked some of the changes in watchOS 3 beta 3 and need your help spotting them. Should you stumble upon any new features, enhancements or fixes in watchOS 3 beta 3 that weren’t mentioned here, do post your findings in the comment section below or email us attips@iDownloadBlog.comand we’ll update the article with any new information.
