What you need to know
- Some third-party Apple Watch apps are missing icons when installed on Apple's hot new thing.
- Third-party apps like CARROT Weather, Drafts, Fantastical, and PCalc are missing icons altogether.
- Missing icons means it can be impossible to tell which app is which.
Quite the problem.
Update, October 15 (08:00 am ET): The current working theory is that something has gone awry with the way the App Store has handled Apple Watch Series 7 apps — some apps are also experiencing complication size mismatches, too.
Anyone frantically setting up their hot new Apple Watch Series 7 might be in for a tricky time when installing some third-party apps — because their icons are missing.
As I've noticed on my own Apple Watch and has been confirmed by others, some third-party apps are simply not having their icons rendered on-screen. That, in turn, can make it impossible to tell which app is which depending on the app view you are using.
Did you add nice vector icons to your watch app alongside support for Series 7? Well, hope you like blank icons when your users install your apps today 😞
— James Thomson (@jamesthomson) October 15, 2021
Doesn’t reproduce on the Series 7 simulator, fine on all my other watches. I am not pleased.
See it with @CARROT_app too. pic.twitter.com/A3WVjGDZS5
One way around things, at least for now, is to switch to the list view — at least you have the app's name to go by!
Not seeing app icons on Apple Watch Series 7? Switch to list view while it gets fixed. pic.twitter.com/kd5WoF8AGv
— Oliver Haslam (@OliverJHaslam) October 15, 2021
Initial suggestions are that the issue only impacts apps with vector icons, with PCalc developer James Thomson pointing out that the problem isn't present in the Apple Watch simulator on a Mac. That might suggest that the problem is Apple's to fix, rather than something developers can do — beyond switching away from using vector icons, presumably.
Impacted apps at the time of writing appear to include:
- CARROT Weather
- PCalc
- Drafts
- Dice
- Fantastical
It's possible others are also impacted, however.
I've reached out to Apple for comment on what could be going on here — I'll update this post as and when I receive a response.
It's worth noting that this issue only appears to crop up on Apple Watch Series 7, rather than older watches running the same version of watchOS. Despite being the best Apple Watch it has shipped to date, Apple's new wearable is already suffering some issues right out the gate, it seems.
Update, October 15 (08:00 am ET) — Complications, too!
As a bonus, all my complication icons are drawing at the wrong sizes too. pic.twitter.com/iZ0tgz0NZ4
— James Thomson (@jamesthomson) October 15, 2021
I think that’s likely. I tested everything in the simulator, and it works perfectly, so my guess is that the trip through the App Store machinery broke everything.
— James Thomson (@jamesthomson) October 15, 2021
My suspicion is, since all this stuff works perfectly fine in the watchOS simulator for the Series 7 watch, the App Store mechanisms are stripping out the wrong images when downloading the apps. If so, it might be possible to fix server side. I really hope so…
— James Thomson (@jamesthomson) October 15, 2021
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