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?

Need to vent a bit before relaxing for Christmas... WatchOS IAP using Storekit 2 is such a mess...is nobody actually using this or does Apple just not care for the user experience here? Lots of users experience after the purchase confirmation double tap on the side button an instant return to the purchase screen with nothing actually happening. No error message whatsoever. There is just one remedy: users need to unpair and re-pair their watch, including restoring a backup and setting up their wallet again. Nobody really wants to do this, or doesn't believe me and think this is just typical support BS, because their watch is paired and most things just work as they expect. And it turns away a customer, often leaving a bad review. And I can't do anything about it. Other errors in the purchase process are reported, but like "process interrupted" in case the payment is not setup correctly (credit car no longer valid or sth.). How should the user know? There must be better ways of letting him know what exactly the problem is. You need to implement a "Restore Purchase" function, otherwise you're not passing the review. But it really asks every time for the AppStore password, and users with crazy passwords -- that they rightfully should have! -- have almost no chance of typing them successfully on the tiny AW keyboard. Why is it not also just a side button double tap like for purchase? At the very least you would need access to the keychain PWs or allow pasting of sth. copied on the paired iPhone. Promo Codes for IAP on AW-only apps just don't work. AW has no redemption at all, and on the iPhone the AppStore will try to talk to a companion app (which AW-only doesn't have) and the end up in a dead-end installation effort. This all feels like never really tested in the field, and people are of course blaming the 3rd party dev. for all these issues. And opening a ticket is just leading nowhere -- at best it's closed after months with the hint "duplicate" but w/o any chance for me to see that one that they then actually work on and track progress. It's all so frustratingly broken...

Hi, I have an "Apple Watch Only" app that you can download for free and conduct a 7 day trial. After that, there is an IAP to unlock a lifetime license. For the life of me I can't find out how the process of redeeming promo codes for the IAP should work. Once generated, people try to redeem them in the AppStore (on their phone), but then they end up in a hanging process saying it's reinstalling the app to redeem the offer. But then nothing happens. Also running "Restore Purchase" within the app to pickup any maybe by now activated license is not working. Why does it even want to reinstall the (free) app? This doesn't sound right. Does anyone have IAP for a watch-only app and can shed some light on the promo code topic?

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….)