At WWDC25 we launched a new type of Lab event for the developer community - Group Labs. A Group Lab is a panel Q&A designed for a large audience of developers. Group Labs are a unique opportunity for the community to submit questions directly to a panel of Apple engineers and designers. Here are the highlights from the WWDC25 Group Lab for watchOS (part 1). 1. I'm really excited about the new design system on all platforms. Liquid Glass is super cool. What do developers need to keep in mind when building for watchOS 26? To adopt the new design system, start with updating your app for watchOS 10 – If you have done so, your app will be mostly ready for watchOS 26. For more information, see Design and build apps for WatchOS 10. You can then look into Liquid Glass specific APIs to fine tune your app. This topic is covered in Adopting Liquid Glass. If you have SwiftUI views using any custom style, make sure they are still legible and fit with the new design system. 2. Something that really stood out to me were updates to the Smart Stack, with the system prioritizing Widgets when they're most relevant. Tell me more about these new opportunities for apps. Workout apps that record workouts using HealthKit may be automatically suggested on the watch face and appear in the Smart Stack without adding a widget. Relevant widgets are a great way to present information related to a date, location, point-of-interest type, sleep schedule, or fitness condition in the Smart Stack when it is relevant. Relevant widgets don't need to display a empty state view when they are not relevant. They are only shown in the Smart Stack when relevant. The watchOS 26 Design ToolKit in the Apple Design Resources includes a set of templates that you can use to layout your widgets. 3. Is the Wrist Flick gesture available to developers in the same way as Double Tap is? The system uses Wrist Flick to dismiss notifications and incoming calls, silence timers and alarms, or return to the watch face. There is no separate API for the Wrist Flick gesture. Apps that are using XCUIAutomation to make sure their user interface behaves as intended can use the XCUIDeviceHandGesture.flick to automate tests that verify that their app responds appropriately to the Wrist Flick gesture. For apps using automated testing, the XCUIDeviceHandGesture.doubleTap can be also be used to automate testing of the app with the Double Tap gesture. See XCUIDevice.perform(handGesture:) 4. Can HRV measurements be triggered on demand via API in watchOS? Guidelines or processes for enabling energy-intensive biometric sampling on development devices for IRB-approved research? You don’t have direct control on the sampling rate in watchOS. You can use HealthKit (HKQuantityTypeIdentifierHeartRateVariabilitySDNN, to be specific) to query the HRV data, once the system has sampled and persisted the data to HealthKit. If that doesn’t help, we suggest that you file a feedback report with your concrete use case for us to investigate. Specific to IRB-approved research using Apple Watch or its companion iPhone, you might want to look at this FAQ and SensorKit to see if they can be of any help. 5. What is the best advice for someone who is new to making a watchOS app that’s been on iOS and iPadOS? You can start with exploring the system experience features on watchOS, such as notifications, controls, and widgets, and getting familiar with the system spaces, like Smart Stack, watch face, and control center. Knowing the watchOS app design principles and practices is important as well. Design and build apps for WatchOS 10 is a great resource for this topic. SwiftUI is an amazing across-platform framework, and you will use it to create your watchOS app. If you're already using it, great! Keep in mind some watch-only constraints. Comparing to iPhone or iPad, Apple Watch has a limited battery and smaller screen size, which significantly impacts how people use your app and how your app works. 6. Was there any extension this year to the 7 day limit on querying Apple Health data on the watch? There is no change on the limit this year. You can get this official limit at runtime using earliestPermittedSampleDate. There are some exceptions, and so don't be surprised if you see some data types are retained longer. The companion iPhone holds the full set of the health data. If you need to access the health data that has been purged from the Apple Watch, consider doing it with your iOS app, and then passing the result to your watchOS app.

At WWDC25 we launched a new type of Lab event for the developer community - Group Labs. A Group Lab is a panel Q&A designed for a large audience of developers. Group Labs are a unique opportunity for the community to submit questions directly to a panel of Apple engineers and designers. Here are the highlights from the WWDC25 Group Lab for watchOS (part 2). 7. For widget (complication) update budgets, is there an overall budget or are scheduled update separate from APNS updates? For context I have a complication that is updated on a fixed schedule (every 20 min), but there can be times of the day that are more "interesting" where pushes make sense. Like timeline updates, the system budgets WidgetKit push notifications and delivers them opportunistically. You can use WidgetKit push notification updates as an addition to timeline updates. For more information, see Updating widgets with WidgetKit push notifications. 8. It seems like the new Control Center widgets can be sourced from either the iPhone or directly on the Watch. Can we control whether a control appears in the watch list, or will it always be a combination of all controls from both sources? iPhone controls will be automatically available on the companion Apple Watch, even if they don’t have an associated watchOS app. When an iPhone control is tapped on the Apple Watch, the action is performed on the iPhone. Controls whose actions foreground the iOS app will not appear on Apple Watch. If a watchOS app has controls, no controls will appear on Apple Watch from the companion iOS app. 9. From UI/UX perspective, what are the current practices for Designing watchOS apps that feels native. The WWDC23 session Design and build apps for WatchOS 10 covers the details of watchOS design principles and how to apply them in your app using SwiftUI. A lot of SwiftUI APIs, such as NavigationSplitView, vertical tab view, list view, and etc, already implement the look and feel native to watchOS. 10. When adopting the new design system on watchOS, it seems like the main place we will use the glass effect is for our buttons in toolbar? Standard buttons in system apps seem to continue to use a flat appearance and full width. We leave the choice to you – You can use the new GlassButtonStyle API or .buttonStyle(.glass) to apply the liquid glass material to buttons. Learn when to use the Liquid Glass styles in Get to know the new design system. 11. Is there any way to gracefully migrate extensions when their bundleIDs have to change? e.g., converting a multi-target watch app to single-target, which drops the .watchkitextension from both the app and WidgetKit ext bundleIDs Updating a watchOS app to single-target is covered in TechNote TN3157: Updating your watchOS project for SwiftUI and WidgetKit. Xcode provides a tool that can do the update automatically, and the technote describes the details about how to use it and how to clean up the project after the automatic update. If there's something that technote doesn't address, please reach out to us on the Developer Forums. 12. What is the status of WatchConnectivity? Is that still the preferred way for iOS + watchOS communications? The Watch Connectivity framework is still supported, and is appropriate for the communication between an watchOS app and its companion iOS app. The systems also provide other APIs for the apps to exchange data. For example, watchOS supports Apple Push Notification service (APNs). If data for your widget changes on your server, your widget can receive a WidgetKit push notification, and update accordingly. That’s the preferred mechanism for widget updates.

I have several combine pipelines in my watch and iPhone app. While background tasks on the iPhone work correctly (the combine pipelines all activate), on the watch the pipelines do not get activated. I have an internal log reporting that data is being fed to the sources but is not propagating to the sinks. Thoughts?

There is a longstanding restriction payload for supervised iOS devices that disables "Erase All Content and Settings." We have been experimenting with supervised watches paired with supervised phones that have that payload applied, and yet "Erase All Content and Settings" remains available on the watch. Is this: – a) An error with our payload? Should we be sending something else? – b) A bug in watchOS supervision? – c) A deliberate design choice? If so, what is the rationale for preventing organizations from maintaining this very basic level of control over devices they may be configuring and dispatching into the field?

We are having an issue with our app after upgrading to WatchOS 26. After some time our complication disappears from the watch face. If you go to add it back, our app shows up with an empty icon placeholder and you are unable to tap it to add it back. Sometimes restarting the watch will bring it back, sometimes it does not. Has anyone experienced this? What should we be looking at to figure out why this is happening? Or could this be a bug in WatchOS 26?

After upgrading to watchOS 26, users report that when playing music on Apple Watch, if a fitness reminder is received, the music automatically pauses and users need to manually tap the play button to resume music playback. This phenomenon occurs with multiple music and podcast apps. This issue did not exist before the upgrade. We would like to know if this is an Apple bug or if there are any special development configurations needed?"

Hi, so here's my situation: I am currently building an app of which I want to have an Apple Watch standalone version / companion (idk yet, also doesn't matter). For it to be compatible with basically every Watch except for the original (Series 0) I want support for down to watchOS 6, as many models ended there. I also don't need the newest features for basic functionality and I can still add more for newer versions while keeping the basic functionality for watchOS 6, so that is not a concern, I'd rather have the compatibility. However, watchOS 6 is the last version to require the Storyboard architecture with an app bundle and extension target. I did some research and found out that you can create that and set the development target to 6.0 while also having a SwiftUI target with a development target of 7.0. That would have the benefit of being able to use SwiftUI for modern features to give a nice experience while building a basic but functional version for 6.0 in Storyboard architecture. And it would figure out what to install on its own based on the watchOS version. Now the problem is, in Xcode 26 I can't create a watchOS target with the Storyboard architecture anymore, the option is just not there. So to solve that, I installed Xcode 12 on Big Sur and created one from the template in a new project. That project can be opened and edited with no problems in Xcode 26 as long as it is already configured, you just can't create a watchOS target with that architecture anymore, it has to be there already to work with it. Now I just need to copy the app and extension target with the corresponding files and configuration to my other project, and that is the problem. I can't seem to find proper way to copy that over, and that is where I need your help. Or maybe someone has a way to create that in Xcode 26, but from my understanding the template is gone. Thanks so much in advance

I'm trying to make a watchOS app that uses sleep data to wake users up when they enter lighter sleep stages. Apple has HealthKit, which exposes HKCategoryValueSleepAnalysis to view each stage throughout sleep, but unfortunately, this data is only written after the user wakes up. I did some research and found that the Apple Watch’s sleep classifier is part of Apple’s private system process, and apps can’t access that model directly or as it’s running. So, there’s no way to “record” my own data stream and match it with Apple’s classification during the night. Has anyone found a way to approximate or access live sleep-stage data in another way? I’m thinking of combining CoreMotion (for movement) and heart rate data from a HKWorkoutSession to infer stages myself, but I’m wondering if there’s any Apple-approved or more accurate approach for this. In other words, is there any way to use an Apple Watch to detect sleep stages accurately while the user is still asleep for the purpose of timing an optimal wake-up? Thanks

Hello, I’m building a health-related app for both watchOS and iOS, which needs to monitor certain health data (e.g., heart rate, active energy). Before updating to watchOS 26, the queries worked reliably without any issues. However, after adapting to watchOS 26, some users have reported that health data updates stop being delivered. What I’ve observed: HKObserverQuery with enableBackgroundDelivery is set up normally. On WatchOS 26, the query sometimes stops delivering updates entirely after a certain point, and once an update is missed, it may stop delivering further updates completely. Restarting the Apple Watch temporarily restores delivery, but the problem reoccurs after some time. This makes background health data monitoring unreliable for my app. Here’s a simplified version of the code we are using: guard let heartType = HKObjectType.quantityType(forIdentifier: .heartRate) else { return } let query = HKObserverQuery(sampleType: heartType, predicate: nil) { query, completionHandler, error in if let error = error { logEvent("Observer error: \(error.localizedDescription)") return } logEvent("Heart rate changed") MyNotificationManager.shared.sendNotification() // Send a local notification completionHandler() } healthStore.execute(query) healthStore.enableBackgroundDelivery(for: heartType, frequency: .hourly) { success, error in if success { logEvent("Background heart rate delivery enabled") } else { logEvent("Failed to enable background heart rate delivery: \(error?.localizedDescription ?? "Unknown error")") } } Could you please clarify: Is this a known issue with HKObserverQuery and enableBackgroundDelivery on watchOS 26? Are there any recommended workarounds or best practices to ensure continuous background delivery of health data? Thank you in advance for your help.

In the watchOS Fitness app, when you change your goals using the Digital Crown, a focus ring appears around the stepper. Something I can't understand is how the green focus ring is not centered around the stepper buttons (which is the default behavior). Furthermore, I don't understand how the goal text and captions inside the stepper label are also not centered within the stepper. A final behavior I don't understand is when the goal number transitions from 999 to 1000, the stepper changes height, but doesn't affect the height of any parent views. import SwiftUI struct ContentView: View { @State private var value = 999.0 var body: some View { VStack { Text("MOVE GOAL") .font(.subheadline) .foregroundStyle(.red) .padding(.top) Stepper { VStack { Text("\(Int(value))") .allowsTightening(true) .minimumScaleFactor(value > 999 ? 0.70 : 1.0) .lineLimit(1) Text("CALORIES") .font(.subheadline) .foregroundStyle(.red) } } onIncrement: { value += 1 } onDecrement: { value -= 1 } .tint(.red) .digitalCrownRotation( $value, from: 1, through: 9999, by: 1, sensitivity: .high, isContinuous: false, isHapticFeedbackEnabled: true ) Button { print("added") } label: { Text("Set") .foregroundStyle(.black) } .tint(.red) .buttonStyle(.borderedProminent) .padding(.top) } } } This is the code I've been able to get as close as possible without delving into GeometryReader, where I've had zero luck modifying the positioning of the label within the stepper.

I'm encountering an issue with navigation title behavior in watchOS SwiftUI. When using a String for the navigation title, long titles automatically scroll as expected. However, when switching to Text with custom foreground color, the scrolling behavior is lost. Important Observation: The system Settings app on watchOS successfully displays navigation titles with blue color while maintaining scroll behavior. This suggests it should be technically possible - am I missing some implementation approach? struct ContentView: View { var body: some View { NavigationStack { NavigationLink("Go Next") { LinkView() } } } } struct LinkView: View { enum NavigationTitleMode: String { case string case text } @State private var titleMode: NavigationTitleMode = .string let title: String = "Watch UI Test Navigation Title" var body: some View { switch titleMode { case .string: content .navigationTitle(title) case .text: content .navigationTitle { Text(title) .foregroundStyle(.blue) } } } var content: some View { VStack { Text("Mode: \(titleMode.rawValue)") Button("Change Mode", systemImage: "pencil") { if titleMode == .string { titleMode = .text } else { titleMode = .string } } } .padding() .navigationBarTitleDisplayMode(.inline) } } String Mode: Text Mode: Environment watchOS 26.0 Xcode 26.0 (17A324) Swift 5.9

I am trying to run the simple demo app from xcode on my Apple Watch SE 1st gen, which has WatchOS 10.6 This turned out to be an impossible mission. I have xcode 16.1 installed, can't downgrade to 15.4 (which is the latest that supports this os) since it won't run on my OS (Sequoia), using parallels I installed Sonoma and xcode 15.4 but it won't recognize my iphone or my watch. Asking ChatGPT it seems that it is possible to use the DeviceSupport watchOS 10.6 image if I get it from someone, but loading it up "the right way" on my machine turned out to be impossible. Any recommendations / help / link to this file where I can download it?

I have both apple devices, AirPods Pro 3 is up to date and Ultra 3 is on watch os 26.1 latest public beta. Each morning when I would go on my mindfulness app and start a meditation or listen to Apple Music on my watch and AirPods Pro 3, it will play for a few seconds then disconnects. My bluetooth settings on my watch says my AirPods is connected to my watch. I also have removed the tick about connecting automatically to iPhone on the AirPods setting in my iPhone. To fix this I invariably turn off my Apple Watch Ultra 3 and turn it on again. Then the connection becomes stable. I am not sure why I have to do this each morning. It is frustrating. I am not sure why this fix does not last long? Is there something wrong with my AirPods? Has anyone encountered this before?

Beta two keeps hanging during the download process and says connect to wifi (which I am) or after hours it may download the beta 1.4gb file only to have to freeze in next processing step. I have tried all the resets, reinstalling both the watch and the phone running OS26.1 Beta 2 etc. The impact is the watch and the current software implementation is only getting a couple hours of battery usages before going dead

Using Xcode to build and deploy the app to my watch, this is what I get: “Waiting to reconnect to Apple Watch. Previous preparation error: Transport error." And then “Connecting to Apple Watch. Xcode will continue when the operation completes.” And these messages continue to switch between each other. Sometimes the watch to connect and the application starts, but more often a scenario occurs with endless reconnection. I'm using: MacOS 14.4.1 (MacBook Pro 2019; 1.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5), Xcode 15.3, Watch OS 10.2 (Apple Watch SE 1), iOS 17.1.1 (iPhone 15 Pro). Methods I tried: Connecting Macbook, iPhone and Watch to the same WIfi network; Disabling Watch (and IPhone) from the "Devices and Simulators" menu and setting up Watch (and IPhone) from the beginning. Any help?

I'm reporting a critical Health data synchronization failure that began immediately after updating from watchOS 18 to watchOS 26.0.2 (stable release) and persists in watchOS 26.1 beta 2. Bug Description: Complete failure of Health data sync from Apple Watch to iPhone Health app. All health metrics are being captured and stored locally on the watch but fail to sync to the paired iPhone. Affected Data Types: Activity rings (Move, Exercise, Stand) Heart rate measurements Sleep tracking data Workout data All other HealthKit data points Environment: Device: Apple Watch Series 7 Initial failure: watchOS 26.0.2 (23R362) - stable release Current: watchOS 26.1 beta 2 (23S5052c) Paired iPhone: iPhone 17 Pro Max, iOS 26.1 beta 2 (23B5052c) Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity: Normal Watch pairing status: Connected and functional for all other features Reproduction: Updated Apple Watch Series 7 from watchOS 18 to watchOS 26.0.2 on September 30, 2025 Health data sync ceased completely starting October 1, 2025 Issue persists after updating to watchOS 26.1 beta 2 and iOS 26.1 beta 2 Data remains stored locally on watch and is viewable in watch apps Apple Watch appears as connected data source in Health app but no data transfers Troubleshooting Performed: Multiple device restarts (both iPhone and Apple Watch) Bluetooth/Wi-Fi toggling and reconnection Verified Privacy > Motion & Fitness > Fitness Tracking and Health enabled on both devices Confirmed data source priority settings in Health app Extended charging periods to allow background sync operations Verified no Low Power Mode restrictions Impact: Critical functionality loss for primary Apple Watch use case. Unable to track longitudinal health data, breaking continuity of health records dating back to watchOS 18. Feedback Submitted: FB20533870 filed via Feedback Assistant with sysdiagnose from both devices Questions for Engineering: Is this a known regression in watchOS 26.0.2 or later builds? Are there any watchOS 26.1 beta release notes addressing HealthKit sync issues that I should review? Should I capture additional diagnostic data (e.g., specific console logs, HealthKit database states)? Is unpairing/re-pairing expected to resolve this, or would that indicate a deeper architectural issue? Additional Context: Apple Watch appears in Settings > Bluetooth as connected Can successfully change watch faces from iPhone Notifications, Messages, and calls work normally No previous sync issues prior to watchOS 26.0.2 Senior Apple Support advisor escalation completed; awaiting engineering review This appears to be a regression introduced in watchOS 26.0.2. Any guidance on additional diagnostics or confirmation of a fix in upcoming builds would be appreciated.

Looking at the UIDesignRequiresCompatibility documentation, watchOS is not listed among the supported platforms. When added to the project, it is also being ignored, resulting in Liquid Glass design. It is possible to opt-out from Liquid Glass design temporarily. Is that just an oversight for Apple Watch please?

Hello, My watchOS app has been performing fine by requesting background app refresh and then requesting any new data from health kit in the background so that the widget can be updated. However, on watchos26 I have been unable to read data in the background, with any query returning zero results. That same data is clearly read just fine while in the foreground. Can anyone assist?

Hi, I'm developing a watchOS app, no parent iOS app, when I archive the app, and submit it to APP Store Connect, it returns an info.plist error that I didn't set micphone permission description, but I actually set it. Could anyone how to fix it? and how to submit only a watchOS APP? Any help will be appreciated! thanks！

I'm having problems with my released app with iOS & WatchOS 26 support. I've added AppIntentConfiguration support in the WatchOS app such that users can configure the complication. My complications also support multiple families and so I have slightly different configuration options available if its in the .accessoryRectangular slot or the .accessoryCircular one. This works fine on Apple Watch when editing the Watch face. Here you can then select the configuration options fine and they are correct for the different variants. However on iOS when configuring in the Apple Watch app on iPhone, the different complication size is ignored and the same configuration options are offered meaning they are wrong for one of them. I created a sample project, here is the app intent code: struct TestWidgetConfigurationIntent: AppIntent, WidgetConfigurationIntent { static var title: LocalizedStringResource = "New Widgets with Configuration" static var description = IntentDescription("Lots of stuff.") static var isDiscoverable: Bool { return false} init() {} func perform() async throws -> some IntentResult { return .result() } @Parameter(title: "Enable More Detail", default: true) var moreDetail: Bool @Parameter(title: "Enable Other Parameter", default: true) var otherParameter: Bool static var parameterSummary: some ParameterSummary { When(widgetFamily: .equalTo, .accessoryRectangular) { Summary("Test Info") { \.$moreDetail \.$otherParameter } } otherwise : { Summary("Test Info") { \.$moreDetail } } } } In WatchOS you get the correct configuration options: In iOS you do not, you get the same configuration option regardless of which family size you select: This could be a bug so I've filed feedback FB20328319. Otherwise if anyone has insights, it would be very appreciated. This is all tested on the current iOS 26.0 and WatchOS 26.0 versions. Thanks!

I'm developing a watchOS companion app for my iOS app in Xcode 26.0.1 on macOS Sequoia. The watch app uses a simple ObservableObject class with @Published properties for state management, which compiles fine for iOS but fails for the watchOS target. Error: Initializer 'init(wrappedValue:)' is not available due to missing import of defining module 'Combine' Code: swiftimport SwiftUI import WatchConnectivity import Combine // Added explicitly class WatchConnectivityProvider: NSObject, ObservableObject { @Published var distance: Double = 0 @Published var isActive: Bool = false // Additional @Published properties... } Environment: Xcode 26.0.1 (17A400) macOS Sequoia watchOS deployment target: 11.0 Apple Watch Series 11 running watchOS 11.6.1 What I've tried: Adding import Combine explicitly Cleaning build folder Verifying target membership This same code pattern works in the iOS target Is @Published / Combine supported differently in watchOS under Xcode 26? This code worked in previous Xcode versions. What's the recommended approach for observable state in watchOS apps with Xcode 26?

Are there any HealthKit related changes to be aware of in the new update that enables SPO2 / Blood Oxygen Saturation measurements on certain Apple Watch models within the US? I’m aware of processing happening on the phone…. But beyond that: Does this mean values are then saved to Apple Health? Do these models still take background SPO2 measurements in the same way as other models do? Are these values then visible in third party iOS apps as normal through HealthKit? Do these values sync back to the paired Apple Watch HealthKit store for third party apps to access on the Watch? For reference I have an iOS and WatchOS app that, amongst other features, provides the ability to see your SPO2 values in the Watch app, complications and in the iOS app.