Hello,
I’ve run into an issue with a configuration profile on my supervised iPhone. I’m wondering if anyone here might be able to help?
The profile contains the allowListedAppBundleIDs key within the restrictions payload. My Apple Watch is paired with the iPhone. The iPhone was supervised manually with Apple Configurator, hence the Apple Watch has not been directly supervised itself.
The profile works completely as expected when installed on the phone. As soon as the profile is installed on the iPhone, I can witness the apps on the Apple Watch rearrange themselves as some apps are hidden. So clearly the profile is applying its restrictions to the Apple Watch to some degree.
My issue however is that apps listed in the whitelist are hidden from the Watch. 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. This is despite the following bundle IDs being listed in the whitelist array: 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. Someone please correct me - I’m bound to be overlooking something here.
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?
However, I’m still not sure why many stock Apple Watch apps are missing from the Watch…. The most obvious answer is that I’ve got their Bundle IDs wrong, but I don’t think I have given I extracted the bundle IDs from the App Store pages of the Apple WatchOS apps.
I noticed at this Apple Support page (https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/deployment/dep34c5cd30f/1/web/1.0) that there is no mention of whitelisting or blacklisting apps on WatchOS using MDM, yet something definitely happens on the watch when the configuration profile is installed on the iPhone. Furthermore, if I tap on a configuration profile, which comprises a blacklist, on my iPhone it will ask me if I want to install it on the iPhone or Watch. The same pop-up question doesn’t happen when the profile contains a whitelist.
All this to say, I’m massively confused as to why I can’t get this working. I’d really appreciate anyone’s advice which is bound to be expert.
Thank you