It took approximately 5 hours to upgrade my Series 5 Apple Watch to the new watchOS 10.0.
How much of that was the actual update vs the download all the apps again? Just curious…and does it have to stay on the charger the whole time or just for the actual watchOS update part?
Mine took a shockingly short time. I didn’t time it, but I noticed it starting to download 1.2 GB at some point and when I went back to the charger to check it later (maybe less than an hour?), it was done.
It was the same for me with my Ultra - 1.2 GB, and the update took about an hour to finish.
As I said in another thread, I am keeping my backup Series 5 on watchOS 9 until I upgrade my 13 Pro next spring, as my backup phone is an iPhone X. I’ll want to keep the S5 on a version that will allow it to pair with the X if I need to. After I upgrade, the 13 Pro will be my backup phone, so I’ll upgrade the S5 then.
Length of time maybe related to watch model and what chip it uses. My series 8 was done in about 30 minutes.
I should add, though, that after the install was finished, liked Duane, my watch was showing incomplete info - complications were blank, when I went to edit faces the complications could be selected in the Watch app, but the preview stayed blank, etc. I didn’t time how long it came back to normal, but maybe another hour.
I said “approximately 5 hours,” because I didn’t really time it. When the upgrade started it said it was going to take 5 hours. I know those estimates are not accurate, but in fact it did run on for several hours. I’m only talking about the time from when I started the upgrade to when my phone said the upgrade was done. Like others have mentioned, it took additional time for the on-watch apps to be brought up to speed. It’s possible that a great deal of the time was spent downloading the update. It was reported to be something like 2.5 GB and since I started the upgrade soon after Apple released it, I may have been competing with lots of other people for bandwidth. Perhaps if I had waited a day it wouldn’t have taken so long. My other devices updated in less than an hour each.
Did my wife’s today. I had to approve the terms and conditions on her iPhone. It took about 30 minutes on her Watch SE. My Series 8 took about 10 minutes, but that was the beta. It updated to the release automatically last night.
Wonder if having an older watch may take slower. I remember the painful update times on my Series 3 which would take an hour or so, and many times the update would fail for lack of free RAM.
Entirely likely, though I’m still using a Series 5 like Duane. But perhaps my Internet connection is a lot faster at ~300 Mbps.
Updated my wife’s Series 5 and my SE - it took about 30 minutes each for both. But I had to manually start the update - both iPhones said that the automatic update had failed because the watches were not on the charger - but of course they both were. I have had this failure many times for updates, but usually I just wait and eventually it works. This time my wife wanted the Snoopy watch face - and that needs both iOS17 and the Watch 10 update to work. Now we have Snoopy! (She has been using the Mini Mouse face - and Mini can read the time, but only when she wants - that function would disappear for months and the. reappear again. I asked a Store “Genius” and they said they knew about it, but had no solution. Maybe Snoopy willl be more reliable.)
David
Gotta say I’m not impressed by watchOS 10. Most of what I access regularly is a level or two deeper, the UI is slower, and many screens are more cluttered. The switch of button functionality and the focus on widgets is thoroughly unproductive for my uses.
I’m not all that happy about the button change, either - I used the dock a lot, and use control center rarely, so its switch to the side button is less useful for me. And I miss the double-click of the crown to switch between apps - again, I used this a lot before. (The replacement multitask view isn’t bad, though - just an extra tap now.)
But the Smart Stack I like - for one reason, I can now use a Photo or Portrait watchface more often. I rarely did, because there weren’t enough complications for me, but now I can use the smart stack to look at what would have needed complications when I need that info.
Apple says the whole time, and I’ve not wanted to test out what happens if you take the watch off the charger after the it starts installing the update.
Also, Apple says the watch must be charged to 50% or more as well as be on the charger in order to install updates.
Add me as a ‘me too’ except for opposite reasons. Maybe it’s just muscle memory but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve swiped up looking for the Control Centre. I just find the side button fiddly (I have a series 8). I never use the dock and find the scrolling widgets kind of annoying when I inadvertantly move the digital crown.
I became an instant fan of watchOS 10. I like the improved control of reading audiobooks (from my iPhone). The control center button access speeds locating my iPhone, which is in a black case which always lands face down and difficult to see. Screening incoming calls and stopping alarms are essentially unchanged for me. And, I was not forced to choose a new face.