Ever since updating to WatchOS 5, I've never been able to get podcasts to work on my Apple Watch. When I open the app, it will always display "No Episodes" and in the list of shows, it displays only one podcast, and it's one that I briefly subscribed and unsubscribed to in 2008. None of the shows I subscribed to and have downloaded episodes on my iPhone will display on Apple Watch.
The same situation is also mirrored in the Phone tab, none of the available episodes already downloaded and I've subscribed to on my phone are displayed. The Watch is simply unable to detect what shows I'm listening to on iPhone.
I've tried restarting both devices, toggling Background App Refresh on both devices, Syncing podcasts with iTunes, mirroring subscriptions with iTunes so that my shows get linked to my iCloud account, and leaving both devices on charge overnight. Nothing has worked so far.
No matter if I try to manually select shows under the "Custom" setting or change back to the default "Now Listening", the list of shows never changes. "Pending" briefly appears in the Watch app whenever I change settings, but disappears seconds later and never seems to do anything. It appears that the Podcasts app on my Apple Watch is stuck in the year 2008 and is unable to detect any changes I've made in the last decade.
Devices used in this test:
iPhone X (originally iOS 12.0, updated to 12.0.1)
Apple Watch Series 4 (Cellular, WatchOS 5.0, updated to 5.0.1)
Apple Watch Series 3 (GPS, WatchOS 5.0, updated to 5.0.1)
Updating both iOS and WatchOS and then attempting the listed methods above has not corrected this issue.
I've tried other podcast apps like Overcast, but haven't been able to sync podcasts from iPhone to Apple Watch at all. Either the podcasts fail to download to iPhone in the first place, or podcasts download to iPhone, but cannot be sent to Watch. Often these apps simply fail to detect that I have an Apple Watch, despite the fact that the app is installed on both iPhone and Apple Watch.
The same situation is also mirrored in the Phone tab, none of the available episodes already downloaded and I've subscribed to on my phone are displayed. The Watch is simply unable to detect what shows I'm listening to on iPhone.
I've tried restarting both devices, toggling Background App Refresh on both devices, Syncing podcasts with iTunes, mirroring subscriptions with iTunes so that my shows get linked to my iCloud account, and leaving both devices on charge overnight. Nothing has worked so far.
No matter if I try to manually select shows under the "Custom" setting or change back to the default "Now Listening", the list of shows never changes. "Pending" briefly appears in the Watch app whenever I change settings, but disappears seconds later and never seems to do anything. It appears that the Podcasts app on my Apple Watch is stuck in the year 2008 and is unable to detect any changes I've made in the last decade.
Devices used in this test:
iPhone X (originally iOS 12.0, updated to 12.0.1)
Apple Watch Series 4 (Cellular, WatchOS 5.0, updated to 5.0.1)
Apple Watch Series 3 (GPS, WatchOS 5.0, updated to 5.0.1)
Updating both iOS and WatchOS and then attempting the listed methods above has not corrected this issue.
I've tried other podcast apps like Overcast, but haven't been able to sync podcasts from iPhone to Apple Watch at all. Either the podcasts fail to download to iPhone in the first place, or podcasts download to iPhone, but cannot be sent to Watch. Often these apps simply fail to detect that I have an Apple Watch, despite the fact that the app is installed on both iPhone and Apple Watch.