Updating an older #AppleWatch Series 9. When pairing with my #iPhone, it shows the "option" of updating to #watchOS 26. If I choose not to update, it won't pair. If I choose to update, it shows everything in Chinese.
Great! Not, that I'd need the readme, but showing a Chinese readme on an iPhone which has not been setup to Chinese is total crap. #Fail! 😞
I've just updated our iPhones (from 15 to 17), watches (from 7 to 11), and AirPod Pros (from 2 to 3)...and, unusually for Apple, it's been a complete nightmare 🤬
I update our phones every two years and two years ago (from 13 to 15) it was a walk in the park...not this year 🤬
I did the usual transfer "thing" but then had to login to all the apps which had seamlessly transferred two years ago 🤷
I wondered if running iOS 26 developer beta on our iPhone Pro 15s was buggering up the transfers 🫣
The most annoying part is that some apps won’t let me sign in on the new phones, e.g. Google Drive, and won’t let me uninstall and reinstall the app either 🤬
I only “jumped ship” to a MacBook Pro in April 2024, so your approach wasn’t possible for me until now, but this sounds like a good plan to try, so thank you 🙏
@TCMuffin If you want to do it that way, make sure, your iPhone backups are encrypted. This will ensure that passwords are backed up too. If you don’t do that, then you’ll have to reenter every password used in any app again. 🤣
Also, if you want to move to a new watch but keep the current phone, unpair the old one, pair the new one and restore the backup created by the unpairing process. (1/3)
Really helpful…thank you 🙏
Paul Förster 
Jayne 
🇪🇺🏳️🌈