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WatchOS - Disable notifications while app is executed?
Hi everyone, We have a sports app that helps track your game scores. Still, when you are in the middle of a game and receive a notification (e.g., an activity notification, a WhatsApp or third-party app), that notification will pop up on the screen, overlapping the app. This forces you to scroll all the way down the notification and close it before you can continue using the app. Some users are complaining about this, and it's indeed very annoying. I was wondering if there's any way to control that during matches, no notifications pop up on your screen (it's ok to have the red dot on top, but having the notification overlapping is what kills the app's usability). Users can avoid this by choosing the right "focus" mode before starting a new match. However, many don't even know this feature exists or how to deal with it. Is there any way to block incoming notifications from appearing on the screen while the app is being executed?
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Mar ’24
How to make WatchOS app users aware that there's an iPhone Companion app too?
Hi everyone, When we launched our WatchOS app and the iPhone companion app, we had the option "app can run independently of companion iphone" enabled. The problem we have is that many of our users don't know that there is an iOS app because the app runs independently. We would like to change it so that, if the user has enabled the automatic download of both versions, in the next update the iOS version will be downloaded as well, so that the user will see it. However, we have read that if "app can run independently of companion iphone" is enabled, it cannot be reverted in future builds. Is this correct? Another possible solution that we think might work is to display a message on first boot to inform users that we also have an iOS app, the problem is that our users usually see the message when they don't have the phone at hand (because of the nature of the app) and I don't know if a trigger can be made to install the iPhone app from the watch (or at least open the App Store). Any suggestions or ideas?
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Jan ’24
Add an iOS companion app to a Apple Watch only app
Hi everyone, We're fighting an issue that's driving us up the wall. We developed an Apple Watch Only standalone app, which cost $2.99; once you paid, you could download and use the app on your Apple Watch. We've released a companion iOS app for iPhone that goes into the same bundle (as it's the same app, now supporting two platforms). Nevertheless, the Watch app is still available as a separate app (you can download the Watch app only if you wish without needing to download the iPhone app as well). The iOS companion reads information from the watch and provides more insights into the data it displays. Similar to the sleep tracking apps where you use the watch to sleep and track and the iPhone to see the results. When we released the latest version, including both, we changed the price to Free in all countries. After this, we now have a huge problem we haven't been able to solve: Our existing users (who paid for the Apple Watch-only app) cannot download the companion iOS app. If they go to the App Store, it'd just say "Purchased" with no option to download it (nor the "Get" button or the "Cloud" icon). If you go to your App Store account in your iPhone and then to "Purchases," the app won't appear there. Because technically, you never bought it, and it's now free. If you do the same on your Apple Watch, you can still see the app on your purchases, but that would only download the Apple Watch app, not both. But on top of that, I want my users to be able to download the companion app from the App Store with their iPhones because that's what they'll do anyway (only 9% of our app downloads happen straight in an Apple Watch; most come from iPhones). Did anyone have this problem? I'm already talking with support because this is having a very negative impact on our app, and it all looks to be a bug on the App Store or an edge case that Apple hasn't considered. The thing is, I experienced this issue myself with an app from another dev previously where I had the Apple Watch app installed and paid for it. When I wanted to download the companion they released, it was impossible for the same reasons stated above. He managed to fix it, but I couldn't find any information.
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Nov ’23