{"id":2677,"date":"2016-02-22T07:32:27","date_gmt":"2016-02-21T22:32:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2016-02-22\/2677"},"modified":"2016-02-22T07:32:27","modified_gmt":"2016-02-21T22:32:27","slug":"a-fix-for-apple-watch-apps-not-showing-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2016-02-22\/2677","title":{"rendered":"A Fix for Apple Watch Apps Not Showing Up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n

This post is for the search engines, about how I remedied<\/span> an issue with my\nApple Watch, for folks who might have the same issues.<\/p>\n\n

TL;DR version<\/b>: if\nwatch-enhanced apps are not even showing up in the iPhone “<\/span>Apple Watch”<\/span> app,\ncheck in that app to make sure that you have the latest watchOS version.<\/p>\n\n\n

I stopped by the Apple Store in Akron Ohio the other day to have my\niPhone's camera replaced because its stabilization had started to go crazy. As they fixed<\/span> it for free under warranty, I lazily<\/span> watched the in-store video\nadvertisements and impulsively decided to buy an Apple Watch.<\/p>\n\n

Since its release I've had absolutely no interest in getting an Apple\nWatch, and I don't<\/span> even think they look very good (my taste in watches is more\nsimple, classic, as evidenced\nhere<\/a>). But my mother<\/span> recently had a stroke<\/span> that left her paralyzed on the\nleft side — the reason for my extended visit to The States — and\nthought that maybe an Apple Watch, with its Siri voice commands, might be a\nuseful<\/span> tool for her in the future. So, I bought<\/span> one to test with.<\/p>\n\n

After my iPhone was fixed, Apple staff helped me pair it with my\nnewly-purchased Apple Watch and do some basic setup. It was all<\/span> fast and easy,\nand I was<\/span> out the door without any of the angst and dismay of my previous\nvisit<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

The Problem: some Apple Watch Apps Just Don't Show Up<\/b><\/p>\n\n

The iPhone includes a built-in “<\/span>Apple\nWatch”<\/span> app that contains a\nlist<\/span> of all of your watch-enhanced phone apps. For example, the\nFacebook Messenger phone app includes a component<\/span>\nfor the watch so that you can receive message notifications on the watch.\nIt's within<\/span> this “<\/span>Apple Watch”<\/span> phone app\nthat you configure which apps you actually do want to appear on your\nwatch.<\/p>\n\n

The problem I ran into is that some watch-enhanced apps simply didn't show\nup in the “<\/span>Apple Watch”<\/span>\nphone app. For example, Facebook's “<\/span>Messenger”<\/span> app did not\nshow up.<\/p>\n\n

Searching on the intertubes brought no end of talk about problems with apps\nnot showing up on the watch itself, but nothing about my problem, about apps not even showing up\nin the phone “<\/span>Apple Watch”<\/span> app's list.<\/p>\n\n

I had the latest versions of OSX and iTunes, and no amount of resets and full restores solved anything.<\/p>\n\n

The problem, it turns out after many red herrings, is that the watch's\nsoftware (watchOS) was old at version 1,<\/span> and nothing\nalerted me to the fact that the watch I just<\/span> bought\ndidn't include the major<\/span> watchOS version 2<\/span> update\nreleased four months ago. I'd\nhave thought<\/span> that somewhere along the line — Apple Staff helping\nme set it up the watch, iOS, iTunes, the watch itself, etc. — would have\nlet me know that there was an update available.<\/p>\n\n

As it was, with the old software, any phone app that targeted the new watch version would simply be\ninvisible to the watch and the phone's “<\/span>Apple Watch”<\/span> app.<\/p>\n\n

Inside the “<\/span>Apple Watch”<\/span> app on my phone, I went to<\/span> “<\/span>General > Software Update”<\/span>\n(which had no notification icon). It did a<\/span> check and lo and behold there was indeed\nan update. I launched<\/span> it, and an hour later the phone displayed... drum-roll please...\n“<\/span>watchOS 1.0.1 \/ Your software is up to date.<\/i>”<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Uh, I was supposed to have been installing watch0S 2.1.<\/p>\n\n

It turns out that even though the phone was done doing the update, the watch itself\nwasn't quite done. A while<\/span> later I could<\/span> confirm that indeed the watch was at watchOS 2.1.<\/p>\n\n

Now, all the watch-enabled apps do appear in the phone's “<\/span>Apple Watch”<\/span> app list. Woo-hoo!<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post is for the search engines, about how I remedied an issue with my Apple Watch, for folks who might have the same issues.<\/p>

TL;DR version<\/b>: if watch-enhanced apps are not even showing up in the iPhone \"Apple Watch\" app, check in that app to make sure that you have the latest watchOS version.<\/p>

I stopped by the Apple Store in Akron Ohio the other day to have my iPhone's camera replaced because its stabilization had started to go crazy. As they fixed it for free under warranty, I lazily watched [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2677"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2677\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}