Almost a week after the release of watchOS 8.4, Apple made the arrival of watch OS 8.4.1 yesterday. An update that was not expected, since being intermediate it is not released in beta, but on the other hand it was expected due to some problems that had been detected in some devices. The company has understood that they should be resolved and so it has been.
Yes indeed, not compatible with Apple Watch Series 3, but with Series 4 and later, including the ‘SE’ version. It is not that the aforementioned Series 3 will not continue to be compatible with future versions, because it will be, but in this case it has been preferred to launch this update only for those watches that could be affected by problems and it seems that the Series 3 he was not among them.
What problems does this new version correct?
If you go to Settings> General> Software update on the watch (or do it from the iPhone app), you may find that the release notes do not detail much beyond that it corrects some problems and offers performance improvements . There are times when Apple is not very explanatory, but according to what has been seen in these weeks in forums and social networks, we can get the idea.
Just a couple of days ago we told you that some users were complaining about a excessive battery consumption, being especially remarkable what happened in the Apple Watch Series 4 and Series 5. Therefore, we understand that one of the problems that this version corrects is precisely that. From what we have been able to see in these hours, it seems that the parameters return to normal, already being a more regular consumption similar to that in watchOS 8.3.
It is also sensed that it could bring load related improvements, something that would not be really new. We recall that both in version 8.3 and 8.4 some problems related to this were already corrected and, despite everything, it seems that there were still users affected by the problem. The only mystery that remains unsolved and that seems to have no explanation is that of watchOS 8.2, a version that was never released because it went from 8.1.1 to 8.3 (it was not the first time that watchOS skipped a version).
With watchOS 8.5 already on the horizon
The version that is in beta for developers is 8.5, which was released last week. It will accompany iOS 15.4, macOS 12.3 and company. Although it is true that these other operating systems will come with interesting news, to date nothing relevant to the company’s watches has been found. In fact, it is still notorious how watchOS 8 has hardly brought any news beyond its first version.
In any case, we still have several weeks and even months of testing to go. It is expected that this version can be released at the end of March or beginning of April and, therefore, there are still several betas to see in which we could find something new. Although, being realistic, we fear that they will not bring too many changes at a visual and functional level.
