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How To Update Your Apple Watch To watchOS 2

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You took the plunge and bought an Apple Watch and now you want to take advantage of watchOS 2, Apple’s update to the operating system powering its smartwatches.

It’s a worthy upgrade. With watchOS 2, developers are able to offer apps that run natively on the Apple Watch and include complications (or widgets), there are additional watch faces from Apple (and the ability to use your own photos as a background), a Nightstand mode turns the wearable into a mini bedside alarm clock while recharging and your Apple Watch can now connect directly to Wi-Fi, cutting that iPhone tether...

How to update your Apple Watch to watchOS 2 (Credit: Screen capture by Brad Moon)

Oh, and you can also reply directly to e-mails, not just messages.

In short, watchOS 2 is a worthy upgrade. Here’s how you get it.

  1. Connect your Apple Watch to its charger, ensure it’s at 50 percent charge or more, leave it connected and do not restart it during the installation process
  2. Ensure the Apple Watch and iPhone are connected by Bluetooth
  3. Ensure your iPhone is connected to a Wi-Fi network
  4. Launch the Watch App on your iPhone
  5. From the My Watch tab, choose General then Software Update
  6. watchOS 2 update will be displayed
  7. Tap on Download and Install
  8. You may be prompted to enter your iPhone and/or Apple Watch passcode
  9. You will see a Downloading to Watch... message on your iPhone and an orange progress bar

watchOS 2 Installation in progress (Credit: Screen capture by Brad Moon)

  1. That will change to Preparing... when the download is complete
  2. Then Verifying...
  3. Then Installing...
  4. Your Apple Watch will reboot as part of the installation process
  5. Wait until the installation is complete (in my case it took roughly 40 minutes from the time the software began downloading to the time the Apple Watch was updated to watchOS 2).

Here’s what happens if you don’t follow all the instructions (such as making sure the Apple Watch is sufficiently charged):

watchOS 2 Installation automatically paused (Credit: Screen capture by Brad Moon)

Don’t worry, the watchOS update has been downloaded to your iPhone and when you attempt the install again (after resolving the issue), this time the process will be considerably quicker.