Apple releases first public beta of watchOS 7 to Apple Watch users

Chance Miller | Aug 10 2020 - 10:30 am PT

Apple has officially released the the first public beta of watchOS 7 to Apple Watch users today. If you’re an Apple Watch user who is interested in running the watchOS 7 public beta, you can head to Apple’s Beta Software Program website to get started.

This year marks the first time that Apple has released a public beta of watchOS. In the past, Apple has reserved watchOS betas purely for developers, even though public betas of its other operating systems were also released to public beta users.

There are a few things to keep in mind when considering whether or not to install the watchOS 7 public beta on your Apple Watch. First and foremost, the iPhone with which your Apple Watch is paired must also be running the iOS 14 beta. Secondly, you will not be able to downgrade your Apple Watch from watchOS 7 to watchOS 6, regardless of the issues you might face.

Apple warns:

The watchOS public beta updates are still in development, which means some applications and services may not work as expected, and their data may not be backwards compatible. Apple Watch content backs up automatically to your paired iPhone. You can learn more about Apple Watch backups here. Please note Apple Watch cannot be restored to previously-released OS versions once the public beta is installed.

Apple also warns that VoiceOver isn’t functional in the latest watchOS 7 beta. If you rely on VoiceOver, Apple says that you should not update to watchOS 7 beta until this issue is resolved.

With this year’s debut of watchOS 7, Apple is dropping support for Apple Watch Series 1 and Apple Watch Series 2. This means that those models will stick to watchOS 6, while the following will be updated to watchOS 7 when it’s released this fall:

watchOS 7 adds a variety of new features to the Apple Watch, including support for watch face sharing. You can now create and share watch faces with other people, but developers can also offer preconfigured faces in their application, while you can also add watch faces from the web.

Sleep tracking is also now supported on Apple Watch, while Workouts app has been updated with new dance workouts and improved calorie tracking for things like core training, cooldowns, and functional training.

Curious what Apple’s major software versions will do for your iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, and Mac? Catch up on 9to5Mac‘s coverage below:

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