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 a app that has both mobile and watch versions. Recently some testers report that the watch app could not be launched if the put the app in the background and then resume. And if they kill the app and try to launch again, there is no any response when tapping the app icon. I managed to export some system logs by installing a sysdiagnose profile, and this info looks suspicious

I have a iOS/watchOS app that gives audio cues, like a metronome, on specific patterns. The intent of the watch app is to have it at the same time as a workout app (ie Strava, Apple Fitness) and/or a music app (Spotify/Apple Music). The app works in the foreground just fine. But if I start another app (i.e. Strava) the haptic feedback and a "ding" continues to play in the background, but the "beep or voice" stops. Beep/voice works fine in iOS when in the background, just not in watchOS.

How does Associated Domains Development work on watchOS? In comparison, on iOS we have Diagnostics menu that allows to input a link and test the setup. How to achieve the same on a watch? watchOS: iOS:

I managed to install watchOS 2 without having registered my Watch's UDID, but as it's part of the instructions for installing watchOS betas I thought I'd better do it now in case beta 2 bricks my Watch or something.However, the Watch isn't appearing in Xcode. I've tried both the latest public release and Xcode 7 beta, but there's "no paired devices" section under my iPhone when I connect it to Xcode and look in the Devices window.

In the WWDC 2019 session "Extended Runtime for WatchOS apps" the video talks about an entitlement being required to use the HR sensor judiciously in the background. It provides a link to request the entitlement which no longer works: http://developer.apple.com/contect/request/health-monitoring The session video is also quite hard to find these days. Does anyone know why this is the case? Is the API and entitlement still available? Is there a supported way to run, even periodically, in the background on the Watch app (ignoring the background observer route which is known to be unreliable) and access existing HR sensor data

Hello, I am trying to upload a watchOS standalone app to App Store Connect using Xcode 26.3, but Organizer does not show the “App Store Connect” upload option. It only displays: • Release Testing (Ad Hoc) • Enterprise • Debugging Project setup • Target type: watchOS App (standalone, not companion) • PRODUCT_TYPE = com.apple.product-type.application • PRODUCT_BUNDLE_PACKAGE_TYPE = APPL • WRAPPER_EXTENSION = app • SUPPORTED_PLATFORMS = watchos watchsimulator • Archive configuration: Release • Base SDK: watchOS The app does not depend on iOS. Bundle ID Originally: com.example.app.watchkitapp Recreated as: com.example.app HealthKit capability enabled in: • Developer Portal • Xcode (Signing & Capabilities) Signing • Apple Distribution certificate active • App Store provisioning profile created • Manual signing configured for Release (Apple Distribution + App Store profile) • Also tested Automatic signing • Deleted old Ad Hoc profiles • Cleared Derived Data and regenerated archive App Store Connect • App created successfully using bundle ID com.example.app • Account role: Account Holder • No pending Agreements, Tax, or Banking items Despite a valid Release archive signed with Apple Distribution, Organizer only allows Ad Hoc distribution and never shows “App Store Connect”. Is this a known issue in Xcode 26 affecting independent watchOS apps, or is there an additional configuration step required? Thank you.

I'm making an apple watch game and it's running so smooth and nice while developing but I ran into a showstopping problem that I wouldn't even have noticed until i deleted the app and reinstalled... Every first-run on a freshly installed copy of the game has major frame hitches as it loads assets. Every run after that has ZERO hitches and runs like butter. Even if i install a new version on top of the old one (which is why i never noticed this problem in my almost finished game) it runs smooth. Framerate issues come back if I delete and reinstall. I think it's compiling shaders or caching geometry but I haven't been able to trick it into doing the hard work during non-critical moments in the game. I've tried preloading assets in the main menu, loading at the start of the level, loading and rendering in a tiny part of the screen, rendering behind dialog boxes... it seems no matter what i can only get rid of the frame hitches after the game has been played through once... and I'm going to lose all customers on that first terrible impression even though the game is actually really good and fun when it's running properly... Any suggestions how i can prewarm/precompile the assets to avoid framerate hitches and freezes during gameplay? I thought I was so close to release but I feel this is un-shippable! I can send a link to my test flight build to anyone that wants to see the problem first hand. Also please note that I am artist-forward with a technical lean, but certainly not a real programmer, unfortunately. Jiovanie

I am trying to find out about the availability of BLE scanning for advertisements when a watchOS app (on watchOS 26.4 with CoreBluetooth) which starts running a HKWorkoutSession becomes dimmed, ie. due to the user lowering their arm. From my understanding there is still availability for ongoing scanning whilst in the dimmed mode. If this is correct, what settings are required (e.g. using background capability for 'Workout Processing', 'bluetooth-central', etc), and does scanning whilst in background mode limit to requiring service uuids in scanForPeripherals? Also if scanning is throttled, is there an 'estimated' inter scan time? Thanks

I’m blocked debugging a watchOS app on a physical Apple Watch. The iPhone connects to Xcode normally (wired), but the Watch either fails to connect with a tunnel timeout or disappears entirely from Xcode after I unpaired it inside Devices & Simulators. Environment Mac: macOS 26.x (Apple Silicon Mac) Xcode: 26.2 iPhone: iOS 26.1 Apple Watch Ultra: watchOS 26.2 (build 23S303) Connection: iPhone connected to Mac via USB (trusted). Watch paired to iPhone and working normally in the Watch app. Issue A (when Watch is visible in Xcode) In Xcode → Window → Devices and Simulators, the Watch shows up but is not usable and fails to connect. Error: “Previous preparation error: A connection to this device could not be established.” “Timed out while attempting to establish tunnel using negotiated network parameters.” In some attempts the Watch shows “Capacity: Unknown” / limited details, and then fails during preparation. Issue B (after unpairing Watch in Xcode only) I unpaired/removed the Watch in Xcode (Devices & Simulators). I did not unpair the Watch from the iPhone. Now: iPhone appears in Xcode and works normally for builds. Watch is still paired to the iPhone and works normally. Watch no longer appears anywhere in Xcode Devices & Simulators (no paired watch section, no watch run destination). What I’ve tried Reboots of Mac, iPhone, Watch (multiple times) Watch unlocked, awake; iPhone unlocked and close to Watch Verified Watch is paired and connected in iPhone Watch app Developer Mode enabled on iPhone and Watch Wi-Fi and Bluetooth ON (Mac/iPhone/Watch), tried toggling both Tried on home Wi-Fi and also with iPhone hotspot (same result) Resetting trust prompts / reconnecting iPhone via USB, re-trusting Mac Apple Watch: “Clear Trusted Computers” Xcode: removing/re-adding devices; clearing derived data; restarting Xcode Watch Developer networking test: Responsiveness = Medium (430 RPM) Questions 1. Is this a known issue/regression with Xcode 26.2 + watchOS 26.2 tunneling (CoreDevice / devicectl)? 2. Is there an Apple-supported way to force Xcode to re-discover a paired Watch after it was removed from Xcode Devices & Simulators (without unpairing the Watch from the iPhone)? 3. Any recommended logs or diagnostic steps I should collect (Console logs, sysdiagnose, specific Xcode/CoreDevice logs) to include in a Feedback report? If helpful, I can provide the full error text from Xcode’s Devices window and any logs you recommend. Thank you in advance,

Hi community. It's my first time trying WatchConnectivity kit. When I attempt to send ApplicationContext from phone, my debug print indicates that updateApplicationContext is working correctly. However, I'm having trouble receiving it form the paired watch simulator as nothing is shown on that end. Here are the code for the Phone Extension:     func sendDataToWatch(data: String) {         state.append(data)         do {             NSLog("sent by phone")             try WCSession.default.updateApplicationContext(["currentstate": state])         }         catch {             print(error)         }     } Here are the code for watch: func session(_ session: WCSession, didReceiveApplicationContext applicationContext: [String: Any]) {         print("Hello")         if let getState = applicationContext["currentstate"] as? [String]{             print("\(getState)")             self.state = getState[0]         }     } Any suggestion would be appreciated!

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/widgetkit/keeping-a-widget-up-to-date lists a number of exception including "The widget’s containing app has an active audio or navigation session." https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2021/10048/ mentions: "However, there are a few situational exceptions that will make these reloads occur both immediately and budget-free. These are when your container app is foreground to the user or when your app is participating in a user session, like Navigation or Now Playing audio." Does an active workout session in a watchOS app count as "your app is participating in a user session", so calls to WidgetCenter.shared.reloadTimelines(ofKind:) are budget-free?

We are developing a watchOS application that records long audio sessions and uploads them to our backend in chunks (~5 MB each) using pre-signed URLs and URLSession background upload. Current behavior: While audio recording is active, uploads continue successfully even when the app is in the background. Once the recording stops, if multiple chunks (e.g., 10+) are still pending, the remaining uploads do not proceed in the background and appear to be suspended. We attempted to use WKExtendedRuntimeSession (mindfulness type) to allow sufficient time to enqueue background upload tasks, but the session is invalidated when the app goes to the background (e.g., wrist down or app inactive), which prevents reliable scheduling of uploads. Additionally, we added the entitlement: com.apple.developer.extended-runtime-session (mindfulness) in the Watch app entitlements file, but Xcode automatic signing fails with: “Provisioning profile does not include the com.apple.developer.extended-runtime-session entitlement.” It appears that the provisioning profile is not being updated to include this entitlement. Our questions: Is WKExtendedRuntimeSession (mindfulness) expected to support scheduling background URLSession uploads after the app goes to background? How should we reliably complete pending background uploads on watchOS after a long recording session ends? Is there any additional entitlement or recommended approach for this use case? Why is the extended runtime entitlement not being applied to the provisioning profile despite being added in the entitlements file? We are aiming to follow Apple-recommended practices for long-running tasks and background uploads on watchOS. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

I am trying to create an automation that will anable to add transactions to my app and it’s using a shared shortcut and a quick automation on the user end. it works great on the iPhone but i couldn’t find any way to make it work on my Apple Watch… any help with that?

I’m building a standalone Apple Watch metronome app for running. My goal is for these 3 apps to work at the same time: Runna owns the workout session Spotify plays music my app plays a metronome click in the background So far this is what I've found: Using HKWorkout​Session in my metronome app works well with Spotify, but conflicts with Runna and other workout apps, so I removed that. Using watchOS background audio with longFormAudio allows my app run in the background, and it can coexist with Runna. However, it seems to conflict with Spotify playback, and one app tends to stop the other. Is there any supported watchOS audio/background configuration that allows all 3 at once? More specifically this is what I need: another app owns HKWorkout​Session Spotify keeps playing my app keeps generating metronome clicks in the background Or is this simply not supported by current watchOS session/background rules? My metronome uses AVAudio​Engine / AVAudio​Player​Node with generated click audio. Thank you!

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!