Apple's newest hardware is off to a rocky start, with Neural Engine timeouts crashing Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 models as a smaller group of iPhone 18 Pro owners reports Face ID-related kernel panics.

The new watches reached customers on September 18. Within hours, owners began describing sudden restarts that displayed the Apple logo before returning them to the watchOS interface. Some Apple Watch devices restarted while their owners used Siri AI, edited watch faces, opened Maps or the App Store, made calls, and recorded workouts. Other reboots reportedly occurred while the Apple Watch was idle.

An Apple forums post includes a panic log showing an ANEHWDevice::ANE Timeout. A Neural Engine command waited 2,020 milliseconds against a 2,000-millisecond limit before the Apple Watch restarted. The log confirms a Neural Engine timeout on that Apple Watch, but it doesn't establish why the command stalled. A software bug, firmware problem, or hardware defect could produce the same result. A separate Reddit thread contains restart reports from Apple Watch Ultra 4 and Apple Watch Series 12 owners, while a Facebook report describes three restarts on an Apple Watch Series 12.

A separate group of complaints has appeared since iPhone shipments began arriving. An iPhone 18 Pro Max owner reported four panic restarts within the first day of use. Face ID appeared to trigger three crashes, while the fourth occurred as Wallet opened. Apple Support ran diagnostics, considered the unit faulty, and began arranging a replacement.