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.

Hi everyone, I’m a student developer currently building a watchOS app that uses HealthKit and HKWorkoutSession to estimate core body temperature from real-time heart rate data. The app runs well in the simulator, but testing on a physical Apple Watch has been extremely difficult. Each time I try to run the app from Xcode (Version 16.3), the build gets stuck on: “Copying shared cache symbols from MyWatchName (0% completed)” Sometimes it just stops stating connection failure. However, more often no errors are shown, but the sync never finishes. I’ve tried the following without success: Restarting the watch, iPhone, and Xcode Switching networks (Wi-Fi and hotspot) USB wired pairing Resetting developer settings and trust prompts Deleting derived data Rebuilding the project This is especially limiting for a real-time health tracking app where I need to monitor HKLiveWorkoutBuilder data while the screen sleeps — which can’t be tested effectively in the simulator.

I have an independent watchOS app, and I am a partner of the related iOS app. This means the IOS app can give me its bundle ID. So, here is the question: If I want my watchOS app be listed under the iOS app store page. Do I only need my bundle ID to be associated with the iOS project ? Is it necessary for the watchOS project and the iOS project to be in the same project?

I am using this below code since WatchOS 10 to set the user steps observer and get the callback of steps whenever changes. This is still working perfectly fine till watchOS 11 but when i updated to watchOS 26.1, I am not getting the callback of steps, like the observer is not working at all. I should get a callback inside query block whenever user take steps, but it is not working in watchOS 26.1. func setupStepCountObserver(completion: @escaping (Double, Double) -> Void) { let stepCountType = HKObjectType.quantityType(forIdentifier: .stepCount)! let query = HKObserverQuery(sampleType: stepCountType, predicate: nil) { [weak self] _, completionHandler, error in if let error = error { print("Error setting up observer query: \(error.localizedDescription)") return } // Fetch the latest step count data self?.getLast20SecTodaysSteps(completion: completion) // Call the completion handler to let HealthKit know you have processed the update completionHandler() } // Execute the query healthStore.execute(query) // Enable background delivery of updates healthStore.enableBackgroundDelivery(for: stepCountType, frequency: .immediate) { success, error in if let error = error { print("Error enabling background delivery steps: \(error.localizedDescription)") } else if success { print("Background delivery enabled for steps.") } } }

On the California watchface (white) there are two complication slots. The upper one is seemingly not a standard slot and limited to a few Apple-owned apps (Calender, Time, …). It adopts the (default white) background of the watchface, so the date is neatly and cleanly displayed on the watchface backdrop. The other lower circular complication makes up for a fat black bubble now on the clean face, which doesn‘t look too pretty (of course depending on the complication…). I would like to create a complication with rather minimalistic content, and it would look great if it could also share the white background and just produce that content on top of it. While the documentation sounds like it would be possible to make the widget background adopt the context colors (which I would understand as using the same background color), for the life of me I can‘t get anything else than black for the circle. Has anyone achieved that? How would I do that? (Image below shows the temperature widget…mine would have way less and smaller content….)

When we use AppIntents to configure WidgetKit complications, the description we provide in IntentRecommendation is ignored after applying a .watchface file that includes those intent configurations. In the Watch app, under Complications, the labels shown next to each slot do not match the actual complications on the face—they appear to be the first strings returned by recommendations() rather than the selected intent configuration. Steps to Reproduce Create an AppIntent used by a WidgetKit complication (e.g., .accessoryRectangular). Provide multiple intent recommendations with distinct descriptions: struct SampleIntent: AppIntent { static var title: LocalizedStringResource = "Sample" static var description = IntentDescription("Sample data") @Parameter(title: "Mode") var mode: String static func recommendations() -> [IntentRecommendation<Self>] { [ .init(intent: .init(mode: "A"), description: "Complication A"), .init(intent: .init(mode: "B"), description: "Complication B"), .init(intent: .init(mode: "C"), description: "Complication C") ] } func perform() async throws -> some IntentResult { .result() } } Add two of these complications to a Modular Duo face (or any face that supports multiple slots), each with different intent configurations (e.g., A in one slot, B in another). Export/share the face to a .watchface file and apply it on another device. Open the Watch app → the chosen face → Complications. Expected Each slot’s label in Complications reflects the specific intent configuration on the face (e.g., “Complication A”, “Complication B”), matching what the complication actually renders. Actual The labels under Complications do not match the visible complications. Instead, the strings shown look like the first N items from recommendations(), regardless of which configurations are used in each slot. Notes The complications themselves render correctly on-watch; the issue is the names/labels displayed in the Watch app UI after applying a .watchface. Filed Feedback: FB20915258

Apple Watch app closes when changing photo permissions in the iPhone app. App A is installed simultaneously on both the paired iPhone and Apple Watch. I'm running App A on both my iPhone and Apple Watch. When I change the photo permissions on App A installed on my iPhone, App A running on my Apple Watch automatically closes. At first, I assumed App A on my iPhone was abnormally closing, causing App A on my Apple Watch to also close. However, I've determined that changing the photo permissions is the cause of the app closing. I don't think this behavior existed before WatchOS/iOS 26. Is this behavior a natural addition to WatchOS/iOS 26? If I go to the home screen while running app A on my iPhone and change its photo permissions in the Settings app, app A running on my Apple Watch automatically closes.

I added an Apple Watch app target for an iOS app. If I install it directly through Xcode it runs, however it seems to be able to communicate with iphone through Watch Connectivity framework and once I close the app it seems to uninstall itself from the watch. When I installed the iphone app frist, the app does not show up on the available apps on the iphone Watch application, what could be the issue ? The iphone app was created using react native through expo. Testing Devices Iphone 13 pro max IOS 26.0.1 --- Apple Watch Series 4 WatchOS 10.6

My workout watch app supports audio playback during exercise sessions. When users carry both Apple Watch, iPhone, and AirPods, with AirPods connected to the iPhone, I want to route audio from Apple Watch to AirPods for playback. I've implemented this functionality using the following code. try? session.setCategory(.playback, mode: .default, policy: .longFormAudio, options: []) try await session.activate() When users are playing music on iPhone and trigger my code in the watch app, Apple Watch correctly guides users to select AirPods, pauses the iPhone's music, and plays my audio. However, when playback finishes and I end the session using the code below: try session.setActive(false, options:[.notifyOthersOnDeactivation]) the iPhone doesn't automatically resume the previously interrupted music playback—it requires manual intervention. Is this expected behavior, or am I missing other important steps in my code?

This is probably a silly question, but I couldn't find the answer to it in the forums or in the documentation, though I may be missing something. I currently have an app with a deployment target of iOS 16 and a watchOS app (not independent) with a deployment target of watchOS 7. I understand what happens when I change the deployment target on the iOS app (e.g., users with iOS/iPadOS versions less than 16 will just never see the updates in the App Store). But what happens if I change the deployment target of the watchOS dependent app to something like watchOS 8? Will users who have iOS 16 and watchOS 7 (iOS meets deployment target/watchOS does not) get the app update, and it'll just uninstall the watchOS app automatically? Will they just not see the update? Does the old version of the Watch app somehow stay on their watch while the iOS app gets updated?

I’ve developed an Apple Watch extension for an existing iOS app. When I run the app on the watch via Xcode using the simulator, everything works fine. However, when I try to install it on my iPhone, the Watch app doesn’t show it in the "Available Apps" list, so I can't install it on the watch. The Apple Watch is connected to my iPhone, and I can see other apps available for installation without any issues. I also created a brand new project with watchOS support to troubleshoot, but the same problem occurred. Any ideas on how to resolve this?

The WatchOS app and view lifecycles for WatchKit and SwiftUI are documented in https://developer.apple.com/documentation/watchkit/working-with-the-watchos-app-life-cycle and https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swiftui/migrating-to-the-swiftui-life-cycle. WatchOS 26 appears to change the app & view lifecycle from the behavior in WatchOS 11, and no longer matches the documented lifecycles. On WatchOS 11, with a @WKApplicationDelegateAdaptor set, the following sequence of events would occur on app launch: WKApplicationDelegate applicationDidFinishLaunching in WKApplicationState .inactive. WKApplicationDelegate applicationWillEnterForeground in WKApplicationState .inactive. View .onAppear @Environment(.scenePhase) .inactive App onChange(of: @Environment(.scenePhase)): .active WKApplicationDelegate applicationDidBecomeActive in WKApplicationState .active. App onReceive(.didBecomeActiveNotification): WKApplicationState(rawValue: 0) View .onChange of: .@Environment(.scenePhase) .active In WatchOS 26, this is now: WKApplicationDelegate applicationDidFinishLaunching in WKApplicationState .inactive. WKApplicationDelegate applicationWillEnterForeground in WKApplicationState .inactive. App onChange(of: @Environment(.scenePhase)): .active WKApplicationDelegate applicationDidBecomeActive in WKApplicationState .active. View .onAppear @Environment(.scenePhase) .active When resuming from the background in WatchOS 11: App onChange(of: @Environment(.scenePhase)): inactive WKApplicationDelegate applicationWillEnterForeground in WKApplicationState .background. App onReceive(.willEnterForegroundNotification): WKApplicationState(rawValue: 2) View .onChange of: .@Environment(.scenePhase) inactive App onChange(of: @Environment(.scenePhase)): active WKApplicationDelegate applicationDidBecomeActive in WKApplicationState .active. App onReceive(.didBecomeActiveNotification): WKApplicationState(rawValue: 0) View .onChange of: .@Environment(.scenePhase) active The resume from background process in WatchOS 26 is baffling and seems like it must be a bug: App onChange(of: @Environment(.scenePhase)): inactive WKApplicationDelegate applicationWillEnterForeground in WKApplicationState .background. App onReceive(.willEnterForegroundNotification): WKApplicationState(rawValue: 2) App onChange(of: @Environment(.scenePhase)): active WKApplicationDelegate applicationDidBecomeActive in WKApplicationState .active. App onReceive(.didBecomeActiveNotification): WKApplicationState(rawValue: 0) View .onChange of: @Environment(.scenePhase) active App onChange(of: @Environment(.scenePhase)): inactive WKApplicationDelegate applicationWillResignActive in WKApplicationState .active. App onReceive(.willResignActiveNotification): WKApplicationState(rawValue: 0) View .onChange of: @Environment(.scenePhase) inactive App onChange(of: @Environment(.scenePhase)): active WKApplicationDelegate applicationDidBecomeActive in WKApplicationState .active. App onReceive(.didBecomeActiveNotification): WKApplicationState(rawValue: 0) View .onChange of: @Environment(.scenePhase) active The app becomes active, then inactive, then active again. The issues with these undocumented changes are: It is undocumented. If you relied on the previous process, this change can break your app. A view no longer receives .onChange of: .@Environment(.scenePhase) .active state change during the launch process. This bizarre applicationWillEnterForeground - applicationDidBecomeActive - applicationWillResignActive - applicationDidBecomeActive process on app resume does not match the documented process and is just...strange. Is this new process what is intended? Is it a bug? Can an Apple engineer explain this new App resume from background process and why the View is created slightly later in the App launch process, so it does not receive the .onChange of @Environment(.scenePhase) message? In contrast, the iOS 26 app lifecycle has not changed, and the iOS 18/26 app lifecycle closely follows the watchOS 11 app lifecycle (or watchOS 11 closely mimics iOS 18/26 with the exception that watchOS does not have a SceneDelegate).

Can’t get the live data from ppg sensor (se os 26.x) for 0 latency parsing of haptics per each pulse (heart beat). any help would be cool. b

I submitted a Feedback FB19925261 with a demo project two months ago, but it’s still marked as Open. The issue still persists in Xcode 26.1 + watchOS 26.1. Could someone kindly take a look at the status of this Feedback?

I am looking for a way to hide sensitive information on my Complication, basically whenever the user does not actively look at it. That includes Always-On state Locked State (e.g. Watch not on wrist) I could observe differences in behavior between Preview, Simulator and Real Device. In general it looks like the .privacySensitive() modifier does not do anything for my purpose (except if the user enables redaction in settings). For the always-on state I could use @Environment(\.isLuminanceReduced) to conditionally apply .redacted(reason: .placeholder). This works most of the time. @ViewBuilder func preservePrivacy(_ isLuminanceReduced: Bool) -> some View { if isLuminanceReduced { self .redacted(reason: .placeholder) } else { self } } However I still cannot hide the information when the Watch is locked completely (via PIN-Code). I still believe that .privacySensitive() should take care of it, but apparently it doesn't. So the question is: How can I hide sensitive information when the Watch is locked? This is my widget: Text("1234") .privacySensitive() .preservePrivacy(isLuminanceReduced) .widgetCurvesContent() .widgetLabel { Text("PIN") .widgetAccentable() .foregroundStyle(.secondary) } .containerBackground(.teal.gradient, for: .widget) (I included the whole story, because possibly my whole approach is wrong.)

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?

Hello everyone, I am facing a critical and blocking issue regarding watchface sharing on iOS/watchOS 26 and would appreciate any immediate guidance or updates from the community or Apple. The Problem: We are unable to share watchfaces containing any complications from our app in TestFlight and App Store distribution environments. The operation fails with an error indicating the app and complications are unavailable. However, the exact same functionality works perfectly in all development builds (both Debug and Release schemes). This issue was not present on iOS/watchOS 18. We have testing, including: Successfully sharing the watchface in development environments. The failure occurs consistently across TestFlight and App Store builds. Exporting the watchface configuration from a TestFlight/AppStore build on iOS, transferring it to a paired watch, and finding it still shows as "Unavailable". We suspect this may be related to the dual-target architecture of Watch apps. Any guidance or updates would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time and support!

I've encountered a major issue with the iOS 18.1 RC and watchOS 11.1 RC. It appears that complications running on WidgetKit cannot be synced as .watchface to these new release candidates. The error message indicates that "the Watch Faces app and complication are not available," which is affecting all apps utilizing WidgetKit. This issue renders all WidgetKit-based complications unusable on watchOS 11.1 RC. It’s a serious problem for those of us who rely on these complications for our apps and for users expecting consistent functionality. APPLE, PLEASE FIX THIS ISSUE ASAP! This bug is a significant setback for developers and users alike, and any guidance or updates would be greatly appreciated.

Hi all. Does anyone know if there's a way to get a list of watch faces for a paired Apple Watch or to set the current face? Or is this just not allowed? I've taken a look at the WatchOS, WatchKit, and WatchConnectivity documentation and no luck there.

I'm trying to run(debug) an Xcode watch app project on my watch. My phone is connected to my computer via USB cable, my watch is paired to my phone. When I open Xcode and then open "Devices and simulators", I can see my phone properly connected. But these errors show up for my watch........ Apple Watch may need to be unlocked to recover from previously reported preparation errors Ensure the device is unlocked and associated with the same local area network as this Mac. A connection to this device could not be established. Timed out while attempting to establish tunnel using negotiated network parameters. I have booted computer, phone and watch. I have turned wifi off and on, on all 3 devices. I have turned developer mode on the watch off and then back on again. Anyone have any ideas how to fix this?

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?