Apple Seeds First Beta of watchOS 8 to Developers

In addition to seeding the first betas of iOS 15, iPadOS 15, tvOS 15, and macOS 12, Apple has also seeded the first beta of the watchOS 8 update to developers for testing purposes.

watchOS 8 on Apple Watch feature
To install watchOS 8, developers will need to download the configuration profile from the Apple Developer Center. Once installed, watchOS 8 can be downloaded through the dedicated Apple Watch app on the iPhone by going to General > Software update.

To update to new software, an Apple Watch needs to have 50 percent battery life, it must be placed on the charger, and it needs to be in range of the ‌iPhone‌. It's not recommended to install watchOS 8 on a main Apple Watch as the software may be unstable at this early date.

watchOS 8 is limited to developers at the current time, but Apple plans to provide a public beta later this year ahead of the software's fall launch.

Related Roundup: Apple Watch Series 9
Buyer's Guide: Apple Watch (Neutral)

Top Rated Comments

akidokraja Avatar
38 months ago
Need low power mode on WatchOS. Please, Apple. And not that ultra-low power mode that is available now. That’s completely useless.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jahin17 Avatar
38 months ago

Normally I’d be afraid to upgrade due to the hit on battery life you get with a new beta, but so far battery life has been trash on 7.5 so maybe I should just jump to 8.
The battery life on my S6 AW has been atrocious lately.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Johnny907 Avatar
38 months ago
Normally I’d be afraid to upgrade due to the hit on battery life you get with a new beta, but so far battery life has been trash on 7.5 so maybe I should just jump to 8.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MorePixels Avatar
38 months ago
Yawn…
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
JohnApples Avatar
38 months ago
Damn, it looks like they’re activating the U1 chip in the Series 6 but only using it for CarKey. I was really hoping that it would be used to find AirTags with the new Find My app, but I don’t see any indication that’s the case.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

maxresdefault

Apple Announces 'Let Loose' Event on May 7 Amid Rumors of New iPads

Tuesday April 23, 2024 7:11 am PDT by
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Apple Silicon AI Optimized Feature Siri

Apple Releases Open Source AI Models That Run On-Device

Wednesday April 24, 2024 3:39 pm PDT by
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...
Apple Vision Pro Dual Loop Band Orange Feature 2

Apple Cuts Vision Pro Shipments as Demand Falls 'Sharply Beyond Expectations'

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:44 am PDT by
Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a...
iPad And Calculator App Feature

Apple Finally Plans to Release a Calculator App for iPad Later This Year

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:08 am PDT by
Apple is finally planning a Calculator app for the iPad, over 14 years after launching the device, according to a source familiar with the matter. iPadOS 18 will include a built-in Calculator app for all iPad models that are compatible with the software update, which is expected to be unveiled during the opening keynote of Apple's annual developers conference WWDC on June 10. AppleInsider...
iOS 17 All New Features Thumb

iOS 17.5 Will Add These New Features to Your iPhone

Sunday April 21, 2024 3:00 am PDT by
The upcoming iOS 17.5 update for the iPhone includes only a few new user-facing features, but hidden code changes reveal some additional possibilities. Below, we have recapped everything new in the iOS 17.5 and iPadOS 17.5 beta so far. Web Distribution Starting with the second beta of iOS 17.5, eligible developers are able to distribute their iOS apps to iPhone users located in the EU...