I’m getting reports that my App Store app’s watch app won’t install on Apple Watch Ultra 3. All three reports so far are from Ultra 3 owners, and I haven’t had any from other models.
Symptoms
- Installing from the Watch app on iPhone: the install spins forever, or it seems to try and then shows the Install button again.
- Installing from the App Store on the watch: the progress circle reaches about 100%, then reverts to the install icon.
- One user says it then keeps retrying in the background until it times out.
- No error is shown on either device.
- Every other app installs normally. All users have plenty of free space and have restarted both devices and deleted and reinstalled the app.
- One user had just erased and re-paired the watch, and our app was the only one that wouldn’t install.
- Another user first saw the watch app crash on every launch under 27.2.1, while its complication kept updating. After they removed the app, it would no longer reinstall.
Affected setups
Apple Watch Ultra 3 on watchOS 27.2 and 27.2.1 (updating to 27.2.1 didn’t help the user who started on 27.2)
Paired with an iPhone 17 Pro Max and an iPhone Duo, both on iOS 27.2 / 27.2.1
About the app
- Uses the older two-target design: WatchKit App plus WatchKit Extension, not a single-target watch app. ClockKit complication.
- Deployment target watchOS 9.0. Built with Xcode 27.1 (27A9275), watchOS 27.0 SDK
- lipo shows arm64 and arm64_32 in the watch app
- The watch app barely changed from the previous release (storyboard edits only).