WatchOS 5 and tvOS 12 Updates Released

Apple has released watchOS 5 for Apple Watch users, and tvOS 12 for Apple TV owners. The new software updates were released alongside iOS 12 for iPhone and iPad, and include a variety of new features and improvements for both Apple Watch and Apple TV.

WatchOS 5

WatchOS 5 includes a variety of new features for Apple Watch, including competitive exercising challenges between other Apple Watch owners, a variety of other workout and activity related changes including automatic workout detection, a built-in Podcasts app, an interesting Walkie-Talkie feature that allows quick voice communication between Apple Watch owners sort of like receiving and sending audio messages through iOS, Siri improvements, improvements to Notifications handling, new Apple Watch face options, and more.

WatchOS 5 runs on Apple Watch devices except for the first generation WATCH (sometimes called Apple Watch Series 0).

Updating Apple Watch is easily done through the Apple Watch app on the paired iPhone by going to the Settings section.

Updates to watchOS are notoriously slow to perform so you’ll want to have ample time available to install the update, though you can speed up Apple Watch software updates with this wi-fi trick.

tvOS 12

tvOS 12 includes Dolby Atmos support, improved sign-on functionality through a cable company provider, some visually pleasing Space screen savers, the displaying of locations for Apple TV Aerial screen savers, and password auto-fill.

Updating tvOS software on Apple TV is done on the device through the Settings app. Alternatively, you can connect the Apple TV unit to a computer with iTunes and update that way.

Separately, Apple has released iOS 12 update for iPhone and iPad users, and a small update to HomePod devices as well.

Mac users will find macOS Mojave available starting September 24, though if you’re running macOS Sierra or macOS High Sierra then you will find an update to Safari 12 that is available now.