I have a watchOS WidgetKit complication that needs the user's location to show the nearest transit station, but the widget never gets location permission and CLLocationManager times out. Setup: NSWidgetWantsLocation = YES in Widget Extension's Info.plist NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription and NSLocationAlwaysAndWhenInUseUsageDescription in Widget Extension's Info.plist Watch App successfully has location authorization Problem: The system never presents a location permission prompt for my widget. Apple's own World Clock widget does get one on watchOS (see screenshot) — I can't figure out what triggers it. When the widget tries to get location via CLLocationManager, the request times out and never returns a location. Questions: What triggers the system location prompt for a watchOS widget? Is NSWidgetWantsLocation sufficient or is something else required? Why would CLLocationManager time out and never return a location inside a widget extension? Is there a specific pattern required for requesting location in a WidgetKit timeline provider? Screenshots Sorry for swedish, but it says "Do you allow widgets from World Clock to use your location services?"

The second time i start a workout session, the beginCollection instance method on HKLiveWorkoutBuilder freezes. To recreate run the Apple Sample Project Building a multidevice workout app. It looks like a bug with the HealthKit SDK and not the code but i could be wrong. The only workaround i found was erasing the simulator and reinstalling the app.

Our watchOS App isn't opened when tapping on a Live Activity. Added the following to our Info.plist and still get the Open on iPhone option. <key>WKSupportsLiveActivityLaunchAttributeTypes</key> <array/> Is there something else we need to configure?

Our watchOS app is exploring adding audio VOIP calling capability using our in-home platform. We are using LiveCommunicationKit for this and have that all hooked up nicely in a proof of concept implementation. Our use case is primarily based around supporting end-users through various tasks with assistance from a remotely based expert. We would like for our platform to be able to display visual content on the watch's screen during the call – in other words, we would like to be able to treat this as a video call. LiveCommunicationKit fully supports all video-related flags on watchOS and doesn't appear to have any different symbol availability versus its iOS version. This high-quality thread (https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/798090) from a DTS engineer suggests that our use case should be valid (i.e. whiteboarding apps) and that the system's response to an accepted income video call is to dismiss the LCK's incoming call screen and bring the target app to the foreground, allowing it to render its custom content. Unfortunately, on watchOS the system doesn't seem to treat a video call any differently from an audio call, and won't dismiss the system UI once it's answered. We fully realize that Apple Watch doesn't have a camera for outbound video, doesn't support VideoToolbox or other low-level video convenience libraries for simplified rendering and decoding, etc. That's not what we're worried about (yet). The documentation is at best unclear about whether LCK (or CallKit, for that matter) can hand off calls flagged as video-compatible according to how we think they should, which is passing foreground UI over to the app once the call has been accepted by the user. Can any Apple people shed some light on this? I recognize we are probably trying to do something not many people have before.

A watchOS widget requires you set a container background: .containerBackground(for: .widget) { Color.black } But I see some .accessoryRectangular widgets, on the Smart Stack, using a glass background. From what I know there is no way to set this using .containerBackground. Does anyone know how to do this? Thank you

Hello, everyone! I'm seeking some guidance on the App Store review process and technical best practices for a watchOS app. My goal is to create an app that uses HealthKit to continuously monitor a user's heart rate in the background for sessions lasting between 30 minutes and 3 hours. This app would not be a fitness or workout tracker. My primary question is about the best way to achieve this reliably while staying within the App Store Review Guidelines. Is it advisable to use the WorkoutKit framework to start a custom, non-fitness "session" for the purpose of continuous background monitoring? Are there any other recommended APIs or frameworks for this kind of background data collection on watchOS that I should be aware of? What are the key review considerations I should be mindful of, particularly regarding Guideline 4.1 (Design) and the intended use of APIs? My app's core functionality would require this kind of data for a beneficial purpose. I want to ensure my approach is technically sound and has the best chance of a successful review. Any insights or advice from developers who have experience with similar use cases would be incredibly helpful! Thank you!

Hi there, I’ve been having ongoing issues with my Apple Watch. Last week I updated it to watchOS 26.3. The next day it accidentally ran out of battery, and since then it has been randomly restarting, showing an overheating message. I suspected it might be related to the update, so I researched online and on the official Apple forums. People recommended resetting the Apple Watch and unpairing it from my iPhone. I did both procedures, but the problem persists, even when the watch is in a cool environment. I’ve been using it normally, but it still restarts multiple times a day. Yesterday I even updated to the public beta of watchOS 26.4 hoping it would fix the issue, but it didn’t help — the random restarting continues. Today I also unpaired and paired it again with my iPhone, and the problem is still happening. This has been very disruptive and frustrating. I’m following up on my previous message because I’ve found additional diagnostic information that may help identify the cause of the issue. I accessed the Apple Watch analytics logs and noticed that the restarts appear to be associated with a system process crash, specifically the ActivityMonitorApp (com.apple.ActivityMonitorApp). The log shows an EXC_RESOURCE exception with subtype MEMORY and the message “(Limit 35 MB) Crossed High Water Mark.” Based on this, it seems the system process exceeded its memory limit and was terminated by the system. This happens shortly before the watch displays the overheating icon and restarts. This makes me suspect the overheating warning may not be caused by actual temperature, but instead may be related to a software or system issue introduced after the watchOS update. For reference, the watch is currently running: watchOS 26.4 (build 23T5209m) I’d also like to share that I’ve performed some additional troubleshooting steps to help isolate the issue. Based on the crash logs referencing the ActivityMonitorApp, I removed the Activity rings complication from my main watch face and disabled Activity app notifications as well. I’ll be monitoring the watch closely today to see if this resolves the issue. If the restarts happen again, I will also try to capture additional logs to provide you with more information.

.navigationDestination(isPresented) hangs after reboot (when called within 2 minutes of reboot) in watchOS when destination view contains @Environment(.dismiss). Feedback: FB21077151 Second button hangs after reboot. Hangs in watchOS 26.0 and 26.4 on a physical device. struct ContentView: View { @State var presentView1 : Bool = false @State var presentView2 : Bool = false var body: some View { NavigationStack { VStack { Button("Show View 1") { presentView1.toggle() } Button("Show View 2") { presentView2.toggle() } } .navigationDestination(isPresented: $presentView1, destination: {TestView1()}) .navigationDestination(isPresented: $presentView2, destination: {TestView2()}) } } } struct TestView1: View { var body: some View { Text("View 1") } } struct TestView2: View { @Environment(\.dismiss) var dismiss var body: some View { Text("View 2") } }

I am trying to develop a Watch and iOS app as companion. It is beyond stupid how I can not keep the watch connected to Xcode to develop. I have tried all the so-called tricks. Why is this so fragile? The phone is USB connected to my Mac I have tried turning off the wifi on my Mac and have the phone and watch on the same network. Nada I have tried just having everything on the same network. The watch is connected maybe 20% of the time. I have tried creating a hotspot network with my phone. The watch is connected maybe 50% of the time. This is truly an awful experience. Am I doing something wrong? Any advice would be grateful.

Hey all, I am a first time publisher navigating the App Review process. I want to publish a watchOS only app, but keep getting this feedback: Regarding 4.0, Apple Watch app icon's background color is still black. Based on our investigation, you have included plain black icons. To resolve this issue, it would be appropriate to modify your app's Apple Watch app icon to include a lighter background color to ensure that it is recognizable and appears circular on Apple Watch. I set the following configs: Project -> Targets -> Apple Watch App -> App Icons & Launch Screen -> App Icon set to my Icon Composer file. Checked App Icons Source. I was able to install my build through TestFlight and successfully install on my watch, and the App Icon displays properly there. I also saw a recent Reddit post from another developer facing the same issue. I can't link that post, but will share this post with the OP. I attached what the reviewer sent me with the rejection.

Hey, I am looking to participate in the upcoming SSC 2026. I am confused whether I am allowed to submit an idea which is for watchOS. I know the fact that submission would be xcode project and playground correct me if I am wrong but as far as I know, we can develop prototypes for watch on playground. If anyone of you knows about this, please let me know!

I'm currently using Swift to write an independent Apple Watch app for watchOS 7+. My app uses Location Services, and in case the user doesn't allow that at first, I'd like to have a button inside my watchOS app to send my user to the part of the Settings app (inside watchOS) where he can give the appropriate permissions for the app. I know that in iOS/macOS you can use the openSettingsURLString string from UIApplication to do what I want, but it's not available in watchOS and I haven't found any equivalent resource inside the WKExtension class (normally the equivalent for UIApplication in the watchOS environment). Does anyone know if there's any way to programatically open the Apple Watch Settings app from my watchOS app? I'm asking since as far as I understand asking for Location permissions again would not work since the user has already refused to allow the permissions before, making the authorization status "denied". I understand as well that there's the possibility of showing a modal and directing the user to go to Settings and allow the use of location services (as in "Please go to Settings > Privacy > Location Services > [AppName] to allow the use of location services") but I'd like if I could direct the user there instead as one might do in iOS. The code below is what I'm trying to do - but (of course) it crashes since I'm not actually passing any system URL. .alert(isPresented: $alertVisible) { Alert (title: Text("Please allow our app to use location services in order to get Weather Data"), message: Text("Go to Settings?"), primaryButton: .default(Text("Settings"), action: { WKExtension.shared().openSystemURL(URL(string: "")!) //UIApplication.shared.open(URL(string: UIApplication.openSettingsURLString)!) }),

I had a Watch-only app on the AppStore, and decided to add an iOS companion app now. Technically this was very easy, adding just an according target to my project. TestFlight tests where successful, IAPs remained valid for the whole setup etc., watch app could remain standalone as well -- so everything looked "Go" for release. But now customers that already previously downloaded the watch app just see "Purchased" in the AppStore for the app, and they neither automatically get the iOS companion through the update process, nor can they force a download (as there is no cloud icon to explicitly do so -- just the greyed-out "Purchased" button). The watch app updates automatically to the new version, but it seems impossible to initiate the iOS app download. The initial download of the watch-only app also doesn't show up in their list of purchases/download (only on the watch AppStore app, but from there, the iOS app won't be forced to install either). Did anyone face this also and can recommend a solution that can be communicated to affected (i.e. all so far...) customers?

I've ran into an error with the insertRouteData function of the HKWorkoutRouteBuilder that I can't seem to find any information on. The error is "Unable to find location series 1A193D3B-AFF5-41D8-A967-B1BE08D9F543 during data insert.". It seems to only happen when trying to insert very long routes, in the most recent case it was a 5 hour bike ride with 5900 samples. I save all the route data in a sqlite table as backup and after checking out the data there isn't any red flags as to why it would not insert correctly. Has anyone seen this before and could offer some insight or point me in the right direction to find the source of the error?

I'm developing an iOS app that needs to continuously inform a server whether the user's paired Apple Watch is currently reachable for interactive messaging. If this reachability is lost unexpectedly, the server should be alerted within seconds. This is a safety-critical feature where reliability is essential. The goal (abstractly): The iPhone app needs real-time or near-real-time awareness of whether the paired Apple Watch is reachable. The specific mechanism doesn't matter - I'm open to any approach that achieves this reliably. Context - what already works: The iPhone app successfully maintains continuous server connectivity using an NEAppPushProvider network extension. In practice, this runs reliably in the background and sends periodic heartbeats to the server regardless of main app state. This pattern works well for the phone component. I need to extend this to include the watch's connectivity status in those server updates. Note: WCSession APIs are only available in the main app process, not the Network Extension, so any watch connectivity information must be bridged via the main iOS app (e.g. shared UserDefaults and Darwin notifications). What I've tried: 1. Companion watchOS app sending heartbeats to iPhone via WCSession This was my primary approach: a watchOS app sends messages to the iPhone at short intervals using WCSession.sendMessage(). The iPhone forwards this to the server. If heartbeats stop, the server raises an alert. (I tested various intervals from 2-15 seconds; the specific interval doesn't matter because the fundamental problem is that the watch app is suspended regardless.) Problem: The watch app is suspended almost immediately when: The user presses the Digital Crown The user switches to another app The watch screen dims and shows the clock face (even without explicit backgrounding) Once suspended, Timer.scheduledTimer() stops firing and no heartbeats are sent. 2. WCSession.isReachable monitoring on iPhone I hoped the iPhone could monitor WCSession.isReachable to detect when the watch becomes unreachable. Problem: isReachable indicates whether the counterpart app is reachable for interactive messaging, not the underlying physical connection. It returns false for many reasons - watch app suspended, backgrounded, or various system conditions - making it unreliable as a proxy for actual watch connectivity. The iPhone cannot distinguish "watch app not ready for messaging" from "watch physically disconnected". 3. WKExtendedRuntimeSession on watchOS Problem: Only available for specific scenarios (workout, mindfulness, etc.). My use case is general activity, not fitness tracking. Misusing workout sessions would likely be rejected by App Review. 4. WKApplicationRefreshBackgroundTask on watchOS Problem: These tasks are system-scheduled with timing that varies from minutes to hours depending on system conditions. Far too slow and unpredictable for second-level detection. 5. BLE advertising from watchOS app Problem: BLE advertising stops when the watchOS app is suspended. Same fundamental limitation as the timer approach. 6. Server directly pinging the watch (ICMP or similar) Problem: While Apple Watch can have an IP address via Wi-Fi or cellular (on LTE models), inbound connections to the watch aren't feasible - the watch is behind NAT with no public address, and watchOS doesn't support inbound server sockets (especially in background). This approach isn't practical regardless of connection type. 7. CoreBluetooth scanning from iPhone Problem: Apple Watch doesn't advertise as a discoverable BLE peripheral to third-party apps. The system-level pairing isn't exposed. Why this works on Android/WearOS: On WearOS, a Foreground Service continues running in the background regardless of UI state or screen status (subject to standard OS background limits, but in practice it works reliably). The service sends heartbeats via MessageClient consistently. This "always-on background execution" pattern has no equivalent on watchOS. Questions: Is there any mechanism for an iPhone app to have continuous or regularly-updated knowledge of whether a paired Apple Watch is connected and reachable for interactive messaging - ideally without requiring a watchOS companion app to be in the foreground? Are there any system-level APIs or entitlements (perhaps requiring special approval) that expose watch pairing/connectivity events to iOS apps? Is there any watchOS background execution mechanism I've missed that could keep code running reliably when the app isn't in the foreground? Has anyone solved a similar "detect wearable connectivity loss in real-time" problem on the Apple platform? I understand Apple designed watchOS with aggressive power management for good reasons. If continuous connectivity monitoring truly isn't possible, I'd appreciate confirmation so I can set appropriate user expectations. But given this is a safety-critical use case, I'm hoping there's an approach I've overlooked.

Apple son güncellemeden sonra saatiyle bağlantı kurmuyor bu çevremdeki herkesin yaşadığı bir sorun

Regarding App Update Synchronization During Workout Mode: My watchOS app has workout mode enabled. When I update the app from the App Store on my iPhone while a workout session is active on my Apple Watch, the update does not sync to the watch. Why does this happen, and when can I expect the watch app to be updated? Regarding Automatic App Launch After a Prolonged Shutdown: I would like my watchOS app to launch automatically on my Apple Watch after it has been powered off for an extended period and then turned back on. Is this functionality possible to implement? If not, please provide a definitive answer regarding this capability.

I'm currently collecting real-time heart rate data using HKWorkoutSession. I want to track when the Apple Watch is physically removed from the user's wrist during an active workout. However, I've noticed that workoutBuilder(_:didCollectDataOf:) continues to be called even after the watch is removed from the wrist. Is there a way to detect when the Apple Watch is removed from the wrist during an active HKWorkoutSession? Or is this tracking not possible through the HealthKit framework? Any guidance or alternative approaches would be appreciated.

Since watchOS 26, watch face sharing has stopped working completely. I tested the following: Sharing via CLKWatchFaceLibrary Other public APIs Sharing via iMessage In all cases, the watch face cannot be reinstalled after being shared. This issue is not limited to my app. Large third-party apps such as Facer and other major watch face platforms are also affected, which suggests this is a system-level change or bug. Everything worked correctly before watchOS 26. Has Apple officially acknowledged this issue? Is there a recommended place to report or track this bug?

Hi Forum I am working on an ios app with a companion watchos app. The watchos app was made in 2018, it uses watchkit and has a watchkit app target and a watchkit app extension target. When I started working on it, the app was already published and running. More importantly, the watch app was installing on the users watch automatically, when the app was installed on their phones. I came in and made some changes, updated some things and added some smaller features. After uploading to testflight and testing the app there, we sent it for review and updated the app. This updated app, introduced the issue that when users now downloaded the app, the watch app seems to be missing. For me, downloading this new version on either testflight or app store works fine, but whenever my boss or a new user does it, the watch app is missing. I have tried to go back to the older version of the app I started with, but this doesn't seem to change anything. My coworker tried to do do the same thing, uploading the old version, but with a new version number and everything works like normal. He suggested the reason was that he uses xcode 16, while I use xcode 26 and the updated xcode has some slightly different settings, which can mess it up. Does anybody know about this or have the same problem? And is it correct that it can be the way settings are handled in xcode 26 compared to 16?