Can't update apple watch series 6 from 10.3.1 to 10.6.1

I’ve been a system designer and programmer for over 50 years. EVERYTHING in your post is total hogwash.

Apparently as you correctly diagnosed, you are in a deadlock of updates dependency:

watchOS upgrade from 10.3.1 to 10.6.1⇒ iOS upgrade from 17.7.1 to 18.

Why do you want to upgrade from watchOS 10.3.1 to 10.6.1?

Please forgive me this highly intrusive question.

But after 40 years of professionnal experience of magic updates and upgrades, I am not sure the update is worth it.

I bet you are aware that mathematically, since watchOS 10.6.1 is fater than watchOS 10.3.1,

it will bear more bugs, even if at the date of birth none of them will be known nor aknowledged.

This a law of linear proportion: the number of bugs in a software is in essentially

proportionnal to the size of its source code.

As I noted, the conspiracy theory is always more fun. Enjoy.

I don't believe Apple is still signing watchOS 10.6.1. You would need to update your watch to watchOS 11.1. That would, of course, require that you update your iPhone to iOS 18.1.

For what it's worth, both of the new versions seem to work very well. There was a bug early on in watchOS 11 that seemed to cause some batteries to drain more quickly. I believe Apple fixed it in about a week. I haven't noticed anything else. It was also a much less dramatic update than the one to watchOS 10. So far, zero issues with iOS 18.

TripleFlacko wrote:

What iPhone do you have? All the updates slow down a bit the CPU to make you buy new devices, that's why I didn't want to update to the new OS. Have you noticed any slow downs?

That's not true. Apple "tunes" the updates for each model of phone. That's why older models don't get all the same features. A current example is iOS 18.1 which brings Apple Intelligence to some phones but not others.

Yes, an update may slow down the phone and use more battery for a couple of days after the update while it finishes all the background tasks. But that's temporary.

TripleFlacko wrote:

With all my previous iPhones I noticed that they actually do limit your CPU in order to slow down your experience and make you buy a new one. Check this article https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-67911517

No, that's not what Apple did. Apple throttled phones with aging batteries so that phones wouldn't suddenly die leaving people without a phone. What they got in trouble for was not telling people that in advance. The throttling actually meant people could go longer without buying a new phone, albeit not much longer.

I accidentally updated my ipad air 3 last year it was slowed down by like 60%, completely different experience and they didn't add any new features. They just limited the CPU to worsen my user experience and again make me buy a new one.

Apple never throttled iPads.

iOS 18 doesn't bring any new features except apple intelligence, which they limited to only iPhone 15+ models, which again makes you buy a new one.

Nothing is "making you" buy a new phone, except possibly your own fear of missing out?

TripleFlacko wrote:

I speak from experience. They do throttle.

Apple throttles iPhones (and yes, they still do). They have never throttled iPads, mostly because iPads are not used as often as people's only means of communication.

That doesn't mean your iPad hasn't slowed down for another reason, though.

TripleFlacko wrote:

Maybe there is another reason behind it and I would like to believe this, but I don’t see it, because it always happened right after the update.

All devices will slow down right after an update. They may also show faster battery drain. However, this is transient while the devices completes the background tasks and indexing. That might certainly color your perception.

I've never had a device slow down permanently after an update. I did have a Mac that slowed down over time but that was mostly because it was really old and didn't have much memory. Over time, apps were updated and required more memory. iPhones and iPads can start acting funny if the battery is at or below 80% or if there isn't enough free space (that also applies to Macs).

Of course, all of this is very boring compared to a juicy conspiracy theory.

IdrisSeabright wrote:

[...]

Of course, all of this is very boring compared to a juicy conspiracy theory.

You are fully right, we all prefer to imagine easier "conspiracy theory", because checking and proving is

more work 😎.

On the other hand, there is also the mathematically proven fact that with the increase in software size,

the performance is proportionnaly decreasing:

more functions

⇒ more code to load ( time++ )

⇒ more code to run ( time++ ) & more conditionnal to choose which one ( time++ ).

This rule explains fully why all OSes combined ( Android, iOS, watchOS, Linux, CentOS, RedHat, Ubuntu, Windows, macOS… ) , the global OS performance is decreasing ( regularly hidden behind the hardware performance increase ).

On the same path:

more functions

⇒ more bugs

⇒ more insecurity.

This rule explains fully why all OSes combined ( Android, iOS, watchOS, Linux, CentOS, RedHat, Ubuntu, Windows, macOS… ) , the global OS insecurity is increasing:

the ugly software obesity. This is fully explaining the real frenzy in patch frequency we are witnessing since ~2017 ( NotPetya tiping point ).

metoo