Apple Watch owners having firmware problems can now try recovering their wearable device directly from an iPhone. This wireless method, while not foolproof, can avoid a trip to Apple for service. If your Apple Watch freezes up, crashes during the update process, or stops working, it may prompt you to initiate a restore. To use this feature, the iPhone requires iOS 15.4 or later and the Apple Watch must be running watchOS 8.5 or later.

According to Apple Support:

It's easy to forget that the iPhone actually makes phone calls. There are many ways to initiate a phone call, such as launching the Phone app or asking Siri to ring a contact. Now thanks to Shortcuts, iPhone users can even put a contact directly on the Home Screen. Once set up, a single tap on this icon starts a phone call. The shortcut can even be set up to initiate a FaceTime call.

Several frequently called contacts can be added to the Home Screen in this manner. Of course, if you no longer need a person's contact on the iPhone Home Screen, it can easily be removed.

Occasionally a buggy app or a new iOS update will result in instability that sometimes causes your iPhone to freeze or become otherwise unresponsive. Instances of this sort require you to force a reboot (aka hard reset, hard reboot, force restart, force reboot). A force reboot will retain your data, so it's not like doing a factory reset which erases everything. Hopefully after restarting you will be able to get rid of the offending app or revert to an earlier more stable version of iOS.