The release candidate of watchOS 11.1 has finally arrived, turning up one day after the RC builds of Apple's other operating systems.
An Apple Watch Ultra running watchOS 11
On Monday, Apple brought out release candidate versions of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, tvOS 18.1, visionOS 2.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1. While watchOS 11.1 was the sole absentee at the time, it's now joined the rest of the group.
Tuesday's RC build of watchOS 11.1 is build number 22R582. It arrives after five developer beta cycles, the last being on October 14.
While Apple is introducing new features in iOS, iPadOS, and macOS in the form of Apple Intelligence, the same cannot be said about watchOS 11.1. So far, the betas haven't revealed any big feature changes, and the release notes offer a fairly short list of issue fixes and performance improvements.
AppleInsider and Apple strongly advise that users do not install test operating systems or other beta or RC software onto "mission-critical" or primary hardware, due to the small chance of issues that could result in the loss of data. Testers should therefore use secondary or non-essential devices and make sure they have sufficient backups of any critical data.
Find any changes in the new builds? Reach out to us on Twitter at @AppleInsider or @Andrew_OSU, or send Andrew an email at andrew@AppleInsider.com.