UPDATED 04:25 EDT / JULY 09 2015

NEWS

watchOS 2 beta 3 is out: Here’s what you should know

Apple unveiled the next iteration of its operating system for Apple Watch, watchOS 2, at its Worldwide Developers conference in June. New features included three new watch faces – displaying Time Lapse images, single Photos, and Photo Albums – third-party Complications, a native SDK for app developers, new communications options, and Activation Lock to make Apple Watch more secure.

On Wednesday, two weeks after the release of watchOS beta 2, Apple seeded watchOS beta 3 to developers.

Apple does not publish release notes for watchOS betas, but the folk at 9to5Mac took a dive into the latest release, and here are the highlights of what is new in watchOS beta 3:

watchOS 2 beta 3 features mainly bug fixes and enhancements, rather than all-new features, including larger keypad buttons – a useful feature on the tiny screen.

Previously, when data was unavailable, Apple Watch displayed a series of dashes; this has been replaced by a single underscore.

New control options have been added, including an in-between setting for screen brightness, and a smooth slider for volume control.

Following the launch of Apple Music in iOS 8.4 last week, the Music icon in watchOS 2 now matches the one found in iOS 8.4 and iOS 9 beta 3 and Beats 1, Apple’s online radio service, has been added to the Music app.

Weather updates on watchOS 2 beta 3 are more useful, now showing the last time the app updated the weather conditions.

Last, but not least, watchOS 2 beta 3 brings Activation Lock to Apple Watch. Designed to work similarly to Find My iPhone, Activation Lock will let users remote lock or wipe their Apple Watch in the event it si lost or stolen.

As always, it must be pointed out that watchOS beta 3 is aimed at developers and should not be installed on an Apple Watch not used for development purposes.

As 9to5Mac pointed out in a related post, the only way to downgrade from watchOS 2 beta to a stable version of watchOS – watchOS 1.0.1. in this case – is to send the watch to Apple to be downgraded by Apple support staff; at a cost of course.

Image via apple.com

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