Sharing String from iOS to WatchKit with App Groups

Question

iFunnyVlogger Dev OP

Created Oct ’17

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Views 2.9k

Participants 2

I'm trying to share a

string

from my iOS app to my

WatchKit-app

. I have enabled

App-Groups

for both the iOS app and the

WatchKit

extension

. Then, in my iOS app, I set a variable for the

UserDefaults

.

let defaults = UserDefaults(suiteName: "group.com.jacobcavin.appName")

Then in the

ViewController

, I set

defaults

to a string from the text of a TextField.

defaults?.set(textField.text!, forKey: "KEY")

Inside the iOS app, this works perfectly and I can access this and get the right value. But, inside the WatchKit app, I try to get the string.

let defaults = UserDefaults(suiteName: "group.com.jacobcavin.appName") let string = defaults?.string(forKey: "KEY")

But string

returns

nil. I've looked through tons of tutorials, and I have made sure that each target has the same group identifier, different Bundle Identifiers, and the entitlement .plist files are correct. Can you please help?

Answered by DTS Engineer in 270748022

Modern versions of watchOS run your WatchKit extension on the Apple Watch. As such, you can’t share content between your iOS app and your WatchKit extension via an App Group; you’ll have to use some sort of networking technology. Many folks use WatchConnectivity for this.

I've looked through tons of tutorials …

It sounds like those tutorials were written for an older version of watchOS, where the WatchKit Extension ran on the iPhone. This hasn’t been the case since watchOS 2.

Share and Enjoy
—
Quinn “The Eskimo!”
Apple Developer Relations, Developer Technical Support, Core OS/Hardware

let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@apple.com"

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Answer 1

DTS Engineer OP

Apple

Oct ’17

Accepted Answer

Modern versions of watchOS run your WatchKit extension on the Apple Watch. As such, you can’t share content between your iOS app and your WatchKit extension via an App Group; you’ll have to use some sort of networking technology. Many folks use WatchConnectivity for this.

I've looked through tons of tutorials …

It sounds like those tutorials were written for an older version of watchOS, where the WatchKit Extension ran on the iPhone. This hasn’t been the case since watchOS 2.

Share and Enjoy
—
Quinn “The Eskimo!”
Apple Developer Relations, Developer Technical Support, Core OS/Hardware

let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@apple.com"

3