Identifying Essential Apple Bundle ID for Apple Watch-iPhone Connectivity in MDM Environment

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Created Jan ’24

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I am experiencing difficulties in fully integrating my Apple Watch with a supervised iPhone under MDM control. While I have successfully paired the watch with the iPhone, I am facing issues with some apps not syncing or appearing on the Apple Watch. This issue persists despite having allowed their bundle IDs in the MDM’s whitelist. Could anyone provide guidance on which specific Apple bundle ID is crucial for maintaining the connectivity and functionality between the iPhone and the Apple Watch? Understanding this would help in ensuring that the necessary bundle ID is whitelisted in the MDM settings, thus resolving the app visibility and functionality issues on the Apple Watch.

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Answer 1

thesummerofgeorge OP

Jun ’24

Hello!

I’m having the exact same issue! Wondering if you ever got to the bottom of it?

The apps that are missing from my Watch are Walkie Talkie, Find My Items, Find My Friends, Messages, Alarm, Remote, Now Playing, Sleep, Meditation and Heart Rate. Even adding the following to the whitelist doesn’t work and I have no idea why: com.apple.findmy.findpeople, com.apple.findmy.finddevices, com.apple.HeartRate, com.apple.SessionTrackerApp, com.apple.NanoWorldClock, com.apple.findmy.finditems, com.apple.Mind, com.apple.NanoOxygenSaturation, com.apple.watchmemojieditor com.apple.NanoSleep com.apple.NanoNowPlaying com.apple.noise com.apple.tincan com.apple.NanoRemote com.apple.NanoAlarm com.apple.private.NanoTimer com.apple.NanoStopwatch

I’ve done some testing, but not sure what I’ve found really. I’ve so far identified 3 scenarios.

Scenario 1: I have the whitelist profile installed on the iPhone. I download an app that appears in the whitelist from my watch (or at least its iPhone version does). The apps show up on the iPhone automatically and can be launched there. These apps cannot be launched on the watch.

Scenario 2: I downloaded a few apps to my watch, that didn’t automatically install on my iPhone at the same time. They were on the whitelist. These ones couldn’t be launched from my Watch. I then downloaded them to the iPhone and they could be launched there (since they were on the whitelist).

Scenario 3: A couple of 3rd party apps on the whitelist could be downloaded and launched from the watch with the whitelist installed.

It seems as though there are different kinds of Apple Watch app and this is what I’ve read elsewhere. First of all there are Watch-only apps, which do not automatically install a companion iPhone app. Secondly there are companion apps, which when installed from the Watch App Store download their companion app to the iPhone in the background.

So maybe the apps that when installed from Watch automatically install on iPhone and can only be launched from the iPhone have a separate bundle ID for their Watch app which I haven’t included?

Apps that are on the whitelist AND do not automatically install an iPhone app AND can be launched from the Watch, include:

solstice
What3words

So maybe these do not need a companion app, but have the same Bundle ID as their iPhone app?

I’m still not sure why many stock Apple Watch apps are missing from the Watch though….

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