The Apple Watch's mysterious port has stopped working, developers claim

Ever since the Apple Watch launched, some developers have been attempting to make use of a mysterious port on the bottom of the wearable that allowed for special accessories. However, the latest watchOS update has killed that functionality.

The port, nicknamed "the developer port", was being used by manufacturers to connect up "smartbands" that could add extra features to the Watch.

Among the ideas people were coming up with was a Reserve Strap that allowed for 30 hours of extra battery life, but the company has had to suspend all shipments following Apple's port block.

Reserve Strap said on its blog: "Beginning with watchOS 2.0.1 an unexpected change to the Apple External Accessory Protocol disabled the functionality of Reserve Strap.

"Specifically, this bug interferes with the communication between accessories and Apple Watch. For the time being, Apple has suspended use of this port until they unveil an official MFi program for Watch.

"In keeping with their wishes we will also be suspending shipment of all orders until Apple supports development of smartbands."

Loss of life

If you haven't updated to WatchOS 2.0.1 you'll still be able to use a Reserve Strap accessory, but there's no way of purchasing one until Reserve Strap open shipments again. When - and if - that will happen is still uncertain.

Reserve Strap encourages you to email the Apple Hardware Evangelism team or use the feedback form on Apple.com to encourage Apple to set up a MFi, which acts as a licensing program for developers.

Techradar has contact both Reserve Strap and Apple for further details and we'll update this article as soon as we hear more from either.

For the time being, here's our video review of the original Apple Watch

Via MacRumors