watchOS 3

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<div style="font: bold 2em/1.2 -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'SF Pro Display', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; color: var(--wiki-color);">watchOS 3</div>
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! class="ios-lab" | Developer
| class="ios-val" | [[Apple]]
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! class="ios-lab" | Initial release
| class="ios-val" | September 13, 2016
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! class="ios-lab" | Final release
| class="ios-val" | 3.2.3 (July 2017)
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! class="ios-lab" | Preceded by
| class="ios-val" | [[watchOS 2]]
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! class="ios-lab" | Succeeded by
| class="ios-val" | [[watchOS 4]]
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{{watchOS Version Navbox}}

watchOS 3 is the third release of [[watchOS]], shipped September 13, 2016 — the platform's great rescue. Apple kept favorite apps resident in memory with background refresh, making launches effectively instant on the same hardware that had crawled for two years; the side button repurposed from friend-dialing to an app Dock; and Control Center swiped up from the bottom, aligning the watch with iOS conventions.

= Features =

Instant-launch Dock and background refresh; Control Center; Scribble handwriting; SOS emergency calling; the Breathe app; activity sharing and wheelchair workouts; and Minnie Mouse/activity-focused faces.

= Legacy =

watchOS 3 is the platform's [[iOS 12]] — the performance release that made the product feel finished — and its resident-app model, Dock, and Control Center became watchOS's permanent furniture. Reviewers dated the Apple Watch's product-market fit from this release and the Series 2 fitness pivot it accompanied.