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ddkkpp

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 28, 2011
299
111
I've limited the number of apps on my watch, but when I update them, they seem to add themselves to my watch - but mostly incomplete installs.

I have a lot of apps so figuring out which one is the "stuck" installing app is hard. A reset of the watch can clear an "installing" app icon, but the other day, I had an app (or two, I don't remember) just install themselves.

Very annoying. Anyone else notice this?
 
Apple Watch App -> General -> Automatic Installation -> turn off Install Apps automatically.

The actual terminology might be different. I translated it from my German App.
 
Apple Watch App -> General -> Automatic Installation -> turn off Install Apps automatically.

The actual terminology might be different. I translated it from my German App.

Sadly this options does not work at least for when apps are updated, they just install blindly anyway.
 
A little bug (or feature) that Apple needs to address.

Apple has a conundrum in that as Apps add :apple:Watch support most users won't know unless it is installed automatically. Of course this is a problem for most of us. Not sure how Apple will 'fix' this but it does need some type of "Don't Auto-install New/Updated Apps" type setting
 
If you turn off the Automatic Downloads as the other poster suggested you won't have the problem. It was activated by default when I got my watch and loaded a couple for me till I figured it out. I have seen a few mention that one or two specific apps were able to override this and get installed anyway. But with the boatload of apps I have it's not happened again since I turned the setting off.
 
If you turn off the Automatic Downloads as the other poster suggested you won't have the problem. It was activated by default when I got my watch and loaded a couple for me till I figured it out. I have seen a few mention that one or two specific apps were able to override this and get installed anyway. But with the boatload of apps I have it's not happened again since I turned the setting off.

But as I stated in my post this cuts off 'new' to :apple:Watch Apps too. I want (and probably the OP) to stop an App we have uninstalled from the :apple:Watch from reinstalling while allowing a NEW support for :apple:Watch App to auto-install to try out.
 
Turn off auto install in the watch companion app, delete the app from watch and iPhone, reinstall on iPhone from the app store. manually install to watch those apps you want.
 
Turn off auto install in the watch companion app, delete the app from watch and iPhone, reinstall on iPhone from the app store. manually install to watch those apps you want.

That would be the only way I can think of to have that work. But I think it would work as well to just uninstall from the watch and then re-install the updated app from the phone. My phone is set to automatically update app store apps. So uninstalling the previous version from the watch and then reinstalling from the phone after the update should accomplish the same thing.
 
Turn off auto install in the watch companion app, delete the app from watch and iPhone, reinstall on iPhone from the app store. manually install to watch those apps you want.

yikes. when a person has over 100 apps installed on their phone, with a half dozen at a time being updated for apple watch, that would mean I'd have to uninstall all my apps and reinstall them.

sucks.

edit: PS: just checked my settings, and have had automatic downloads off since first setting the watch up.
 
yikes. when a person has over 100 apps installed on their phone, with a half dozen at a time being updated for apple watch, that would mean I'd have to uninstall all my apps and reinstall them.

sucks.

edit: PS: just checked my settings, and have had automatic downloads off since first setting the watch up.
I still think you'd only have to uninstall the app from the watch, not the phone. Then reinstall it through the Apple Watch App and you should get the updated version on the watch, as long as it had been updated on the phone. I'm only using one or two third party apps on my watch and one of them seemed to get the updated version without my doing anything and I have that automatic downloads setting off as well.

Either way I hope you don't have over 100 apps on the watch, that will be a pain.
 
I still think you'd only have to uninstall the app from the watch, not the phone. Then reinstall it through the Apple Watch App and you should get the updated version on the watch, as long as it had been updated on the phone. I'm only using one or two third party apps on my watch and one of them seemed to get the updated version without my doing anything and I have that automatic downloads setting off as well.

Either way I hope you don't have over 100 apps on the watch, that will be a pain.

nah, i don't have over 100 apps installed on my watch. maybe 6 or 8. But I have over 100 apps on my iphone, and they keep getting added to the list of compatible watch apps (in the watch app). I think as apps (on the iphone) get updated for the watch - they're automatically added to the watch - even though I didn't click to install them.

There's a switch beside each app that you can toggle to get the app on the watch or not. I've toggled a bunch of them off - but they still appear on the watch when they get updated.

Recently this happened to me with MacID - you can use the fingerprint scanner on your phone to login to your mac - it was updated w/ a watch app and auto-added to my watch.... :(
 
Maybe some of the apps can override that Automatic Downloads off setting. I only had one app load by itself prior to turning off that setting and none since.
 
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