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Apple Watches Were Crashing When Asked About the Weather (macrumors.com)

Yesterday MacRumor reported that "Asking Siri something like 'What's the temperature?' or 'What's the weather?' or 'Is it raining?' causes the Apple Watch to crash." The issue has been documented in several threads on the MacRumors forums and on Reddit, and we've also been able to replicate it on our own devices. Complaints about the problem appear to have started this morning, and the bug is confirmed to be affecting both LTE and GPS Apple Watch Series 3 models as well as older Apple Watch models running watchOS 4.1. Not all Apple Watch owners in all countries are affected, but it appears to be impacting users in the United States, Canada, and Europe.
The problem may have been caused by Daylight Savings Time, they reported yesterday, since "asking Siri about the weather tomorrow or next week doesn't cause a problem -- it's only questions about the current weather conditions that are resulting in errors."

Engadget confirms that "The issue appears to be over. We've checked both before and afterward, and it's now safe to ask Siri if it's raining."

12 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. Clarification by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Informative

    I have a Series 1 Apple Watch, and as far as I can tell it wasn’t enough to ask it “what’s the weather?” - I had to add the qualifier “right now” to get my watch to respiring.

    But yeah, silly bug. If Siri actually worked well, it might’ve been more annoying... but I can’t imagine too many people have the patience to use her as their primary means of interaction with the device. “I’ll tap you when I’m ready” gets old, really fast.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  2. Apple fanboys by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I know a lot of apple fans don't like winows, but surely just looking out of one would avoid having to ask Siri?

  3. Re:Devs should do QA by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Informative

    To be fair, Apple hasn’t cornered the market on time-related bugs. Android’s had them too... and I still remember the ~ 30 patches Microsoft released trying to fix the Outlook/Exchange daylight saving calendar bug, back when the US redefined the start date (none of which actually solved the problem).

    Still, Apple deserves any grief it’s getting over this. Maybe if they’d spent less time on that 3-D talking poop emoji...

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  4. Re: Apple? It's SHIT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    It depends on the project. Your criticism explains why a lot of FOSS is doomed to obscurity, but the really successful Linux projects like Ubuntu, Fedora and Mint either have large corporate support and/or very active and helpful user communities.

  5. Re:Devs should do QA by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 2

    To be fair, Apple hasn’t cornered the market on time-related bugs. Android’s had them too...

    There may not be a professional programmer alive who hasn't ever had a date/time bug. Still though, it always seems just a little bit silly that they surface in shipping code.

  6. Re:My Casio never let me down by Khyber · · Score: 2

    "The mobile phone replaced the PC"

    Not for about 80% of my needs has a smartphone even come close to a PC.

    --
    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  7. Help me understand. by Chrisje · · Score: 2

    In order to know the current weather, one could look out the window. Or worse: Actually walk outside and have a feel.

    Granted, where I live "buienradar" is a good thing since it allows you to plan around rainfall at a given location at a given time, but this smartwatch bug seems to be a first world problem if ever I saw one.

  8. Re: Apple? It's SHIT by geekmux · · Score: 2

    Linux is garbage. Open source is generally garbage. It will continue to be garbage as long as developers reopens to criticism by telling users to go solve the problems themselves. That's the typical open source response, to tell users that if they don't like something to go code up a fix on their own. As long as there are so any hostile attitudes from Linux and open source developers, it will continue to be garbage. The criticism tells developers how to improve the software. When the criticism is dismissed, it drives away users and the software remains garbage. Linux and open source are garbage and are not real solutions for most problems. Linux zealots like you are far too conceited to even accept there's a problem, let alone to actually fix the issues and make your software usable. Windows, iOS, and macOS all have their issues, but all are far superior to Linux.

    Open Source is dismissive by offering users dozens of alternatives, allowing them to DIY on any hardware. You call this "garbage".

    Apple is dismissive by offering consumers no alternatives running on custom laser-sealed hardware. You call this "courage".

    You have one hell of a way of defining conceited.

  9. Re:Devs should do QA by Ecuador · · Score: 2, Informative

    Well, actually Apple has quite a significant share of time-related bugs and it almost seems like they are trying to... ehm... "corner the DST market" ? :)
    For example, I distinctly remember my iPhone forgetting to wake me up in time a few years ago after DST. From a quick search I see it was 2010. So, iOS 4.1 had a bug where repeating alarms did not work across DST change boundaries. What was infuriating about the bug is that Apple had ample warning, as 2-3 weeks before the Europe, it hit Australia and NZ. That was not enough time for a fix (Apple appears to have suggested "use non-repeating alarms" aka "you're doing it wrong"), so it hit Europe and, then, a week later the US as well. Then they had a DST bug in 2013 as well.

    But of course apart from DST there have been other gems like the aforementioned 1970 bug...

    And these are the high profile bugs, as a developer I know of subtle bugs that you have to work around since Apple declares them as "as designed" (for example, the date formatter "HH" may or may not be affected by the "24h time" slider in settings, depending on what is the default of that slider in the phone region.. ugh).

    --
    Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
  10. Re: Apple? It's SHIT by dougdonovan · · Score: 2

    i "gave" my apple watch to my neighbors kid.

  11. Re:Devs should do QA by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 2

    I once had a Windows system, I think it was Windows 95 or 98, prompt me to update for Daylight Savings time. It wanted to set the clock back an hour. I said 'yes' to the prompt.

    An hour later it prompted me again, to see if I wanted to set the clock back for Daylight Savings time.

  12. Re: Moscow rain questions?criminal Hilary by Demena · · Score: 2

    I do not believe anything that Trump says about Clinton. On the other hand what she did to Bernie is undoubtablr criminal. A criminal act the resulted in Trump presidency