World enews: iPhone 13: Apple says it is aware of issue with how new phone works with Watch

Apple says it is aware of an issue that stops the new iPhone 13 and the Apple Watch working properly together – and is working on a fix.

The new iPhones were released on Friday and some users quickly found a small problem with the device: it was unable to take advantage of a recent, small feature that makes life easier as people continue to wear masks indoors.

The tool, introduced in April, allows users to unlock their iPhone with their Apple Watch. If the phone detects that its owner’s face is covered up, it will instead ping the Watch, and if that is nearby and unlocked, the phone will unlock itself too.

But when users came to set up their new iPhone 13, they found that feature did not work properly, and instead threw up error messages saying the phone was “unable to communicate with Apple Watch”, or similar. The rest of the connection between the iPhone and the Apple Watch works as normal.

Now Apple has recognised the issues in a support document published on its website, as spotted by Macrumors. It is also says that it “will be fixed in an upcoming software update”.

For now, the company advises affected users to instead just turn the feature off. That can be done by going to the Settings app and clicking to the “Face ID & Passcode” option.

The Apple Watch problems are not the only teething problem to affect the new iPhone. Last week, developers also found that their apps seemed to be unable to take advantage of the higher refresh rate on the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max – one of its most promoted features – leading to concerns that the feature would not work in third-party apps.

Since then, Apple has confirmed that the feature is available to all developers, but that they must add a small piece of code into their app to make clear that they want to use it.