Apple Watch 11.1 Beta 3 has been pulled due to bricking reports

The occasional risks associated with downloading betas were highlighted by Apple's decision on Wednesday to pull the watchOS 11.1 Beta 3 update after users reported it bricked their Apple Watch. The company made the decision just hours after releasing it to developers for testing.

A MacRumors reporter noted the development in a post on Even a reboot had limited success.

A comment spotted on Reddit by 9to5Mac said that after installing the beta software, the Apple Watch “completely blocked every single boot process.” It continued: “I hold down the side button and crown to restart it, it restarts and not even a minute later it's completely frozen.” The time doesn't update, nothing. It happened right when someone texted me and it's been non-stop since then. It’s currently in its seventh lockdown and it only started 15 minutes ago.”

It's not the first device to experience problems with new Apple software. The company recently pulled HomePod Software 18.1 Beta 2 over bricking concerns and even suspended access to iPadOS 18.0 (which was not a beta but a full public release) for M4 iPad Pros following similar bricking reports.

The latest development is a reminder to always be careful when downloading beta software, regardless of whether it comes from Apple. While the Apple Watch beta is reserved for developers to test, Apple often releases a public beta before a full public release, and even that is likely to have some annoying bugs.

The general advice is to avoid installing beta software on a device that you rely on for daily use. In fact, Apple reminds on its website that beta software often contains bugs and the point of downloading is to get feedback to fix these bugs.

“Please note that because the Beta Software has not yet been commercially released by Apple, it may contain errors or inaccuracies and may not perform as well as commercially released software,” the company says, adding: “We strongly recommend the Install on a secondary system or device, or on a secondary partition on your Mac.”