A few weeks after releasing watchOS 10.1 to users, Apple is now seeding watchOS 10.1.1 to Apple Watch owners. This update comes with an important fix for excessive Apple Watch battery drain, which several users started complaining about after updating to watchOS 10.1.
Interestingly, during the watchOS 10.1 beta cycle, Apple issued an update to help reduce excessive battery drain when a user wasn’t running testing software in both the iPhone and Apple Watch. According to Apple, this increase in power consumption happened when an Apple Watch running watchOS 10.1 beta was paired with an iPhone running iOS 17. The opposite could also happen iOS 17.1 beta and watchOS 10.
That said, it seems this update wasn’t enough, as with both versions now available, Apple needed to release watchOS 10.1.1. Here’s what the release notes say:
This update provides important bug fixes and addresses an issue that could cause the battery to drain more quickly for some users.
With watchOS 10.1, Apple brought two important features to Apple Watch users:
- NameDrop from iPhone to Apple Watch lets you easily share your contact information from one iPhone to Apple Watch by approaching them. While this function is available for iPhone to iPhone with iOS 17, Apple says that nearing an iPhone to Apple Watch to perform the same action is possible with Apple Watch Series 6 and later, Apple Watch SE (1st and 2nd generation), and Apple Watch Ultra.
- The double-tap gesture lets users easily control the Apple Watch Series 9 using just one hand and without touching the display by tapping the index finger and thumb of their watch hand together twice to quickly and conveniently perform many of the most common actions on the Watch.
BGR will let you know if we learn more about watchOS 10.1.1. Apple is currently testing watchOS 10.2, expected to be released later this year.
