iOS Beta Fixes iPhone 13 ‘Unlock With Apple Watch’ Bug

• The iPhone 13 "Unlock with Apple Watch" bug now has a fix in the iOS 15.1 beta.
• Apple started working on the problem a few days ago and got an update out today.
• The bug was preventing iPhone 13 users from unlocking their phones with Apple Watch when they had their faces covered.

Several iPhone 13 owners recently reported a bug that prevented them from using the "Unlock with Apple Watch" feature on their new Apple smartphones. The company announced three days ago that it acknowledged the problem but did not know what caused the issue or when it would be addressed. However, we now have a fix for the bug in the iOS 15.1 beta.

The Unlock with Apple Watch feature was released earlier this year via iOS 14.5, and it was designed to help users unlock their devices in the pandemic by allowing them to unlock an iPhone using Face ID and a paired Apple Watch. This feature is supported on iPhone X models and newer, including the latest iPhone generation, the iPhone 13 lineup.

Since this feature is very practical for people who cannot use Face ID when wearing a mask, the bug was frowned upon. This was also because the only other option for newer iPhones was to use a password, seeing how the latest models do not come with fingerprint readers.

So, to get this feature working again, make sure to update to iOS 15.1 and have watchOS 8.1 installed as well, available to developers as a beta release. However, there's no information regarding when these versions will be available to all Apple users.

The new iOS update reintroduces SharePlay, which was missing in the official 15.0 release, and other changes to Health apps (now supporting COVID-19 vaccination certificates) and Apple Wallet.