watchOS 8 Release Notes

Overview

The watchOS 8 SDK provides support to develop watchOS apps for Apple Watch devices running watchOS 8. The SDK comes bundled with Xcode 13, available from the Mac App Store. For information on the compatibility requirements for Xcode 13, see Xcode 13 Release Notes.

General

Known Issues

• Your watch might repeatedly disconnect unexpectedly from your phone. (80733338)

  Workaround: Restart your phone.

App Store

New Features

• StoreKit 2 introduces a modern Swift-based API that takes advantage of new language features like Swift concurrency. Use this API to load product information, display in-app purchases in your store, allow customers to make purchases, manage access to content and subscriptions, and receive transaction information signed by the App Store in JSON Web Signature (JWS) format. (66587964)

• The request(with:) type method on Product has been renamed to products(for:). (79410910)

• The Transaction listener type properties on Product.SubscriptionInfo.Status and Storefront are now updates and updates, respectively. The nested AsyncSequence conforming structures are now Transaction.Transactions, Product.SubscriptionInfo.Status.Statuses, and Storefront.Storefronts. Both TransactionSequence and TransactionListener are now Transaction.Transactions. (79034347)

• StoreKitError.userDidNotAuthenticate is no longer available; use StoreKitError.userCancelled instead. (78270199)

• You can now access Product raw JSON data for custom decoding:

  • Multiple Product.PurchaseOption methods are now allowed. .custom(_:) is replaced with several new type methods, namely custom(key:value:), custom(key:value:), custom(key:value:), and custom(key:value:).

  • Subscript operators on Product, Transaction, and renewalInfo are removed, along with the nested Key enumerations.

  • BackingValue and extensions adding initializers from BackingValue are removed. (79101606)

• A new onStorefrontChange(shouldContinuePurchase:) is available in StoreKit 2. You can use this purchase option to determine whether the transaction continues if the App Store storefront changes during a transaction. The default is true if this option isn’t added. (70757789)

• VerificationResult.unverified(SignedType) is now VerificationResult.unverified(SignedType, VerificationError) to provide a reason for unverified signed values. jsonRepresentation is available on Transaction and jsonRepresentation is available on renewalInfo; both properties provide the payload JSON as Data. payloadValue and unsafePayloadValue properties are available on VerificationResult as a convenience to access the signed value. (80701792)

Resolved Issues

• Fixed an issue where purchases performed in the Sandbox environment returned VerificationResult.unverified(_:_:). (71949674)

Resolved Issues Fixed issue where jwsRepresentation and other validation related properties were not available on VerificationResult. (81517650)

Known Issues

• The unfinished property might return VerificationResult<Transaction> for transactions that have already finished. (81346114)

Focus

Known Issues

• Apps installed only on your watch aren’t available in the Focus settings allow list. (76064919)

Deprecations

• MKPinAnnotationView and MapPin are marked as deprecated in this beta. (78536295)

Music

New Features

• The Radio app has merged into the Music app. (67836373)

Known Issues

• When using Watch apps, MusicKit might be unable to generate a developer token. (78478620)

  Workaround: Register the bundle identifier of your WatchKit Extension target as a separate App ID in the Developer portal, and enable the MusicKit App Service for the new App ID.

Networking

New Features

• The default Accept-Language header that URLSession sends has an updated format and corrected values for multiple locales. In addition to the preferred language, the header also includes the current system language as a fallback if it differs from the preferred language. This behavior affects apps that link against macOS 12, iOS 15, tvOS 15, and watchOS 8 SDKs. (38772422)

Deprecations

• Support for cleartext HTTP URL schemes for Proxy Automatic Configuration (PAC) is now deprecated. Use only HTTPS URL schemes for PAC. This affects all PAC configurations, including, but not limited to, configurations set via Settings, System Preferences, profiles, and URLSession APIs such as connectionProxyDictionary and CFNetworkExecuteProxyAutoConfigurationURL(_:_:_:_:). If you configure a cleartext HTTP PAC URL, the system may upgrade it to HTTPS during PAC file loads. Web Proxy Auto-Discovery (WPAD) Protocol via DNS isn’t affected. Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) Option 252 WPAD may attempt to upgrade cleartext HTTP URLs to HTTPS during PAC file loads. (61981845)

Pairing

Known Issue

• The Watch app might crash when pairing through the camera. (80804790)

  Workaround: Pair the Watch using the “Pair Manually” button.

Shazam

Known Issues

• ShazamKit might be unable to generate a developer token in apps using Shazam Catalog. (78589082)

  Workaround: Register the bundle identifier of your WatchKit Extension target as a separate App ID in the developer portal, then enable the ShazamKit App Service for this new App ID.

SwiftUI

New Features

• LocalizedStringKey can now contain Markdown syntax. The system parses Markdown strings when you create a Text view from a LocalizedStringKey, including Text views created with a string literal. The system styles Text according to Markdown constructs. (74515884)

• You can create Text from an AttributedString structure. Text respects the styles you provide through attributes within the SwiftUI attribute scope; these styles take precedence over styles you provide through view modifiers. (74841755)

• Specific kinds of animations now execute off the main thread, so there are new thread-safety requirements. (70524799)

  Ensure the following functions and types are thread-safe:

  • All methods and accessors of types conforming to these protocols: AlignmentID, Animatable, EnvironmentKey, EnvironmentValues, Equatable, GeometryEffect, Hashable, Identifiable, PreferenceKey, Shape, VectorArithmetic.

  • Any closures you pass to the following types and functions, but only if the views that created them don’t have references to ObservableObject types: ForEach, GeometryReader, backgroundPreferenceValue(_:_:), overlayPreferenceValue(_:_:), transformPreference(_:_:), anchorPreference(key:value:transform:), transformAnchorPreference(key:value:transform:), transformEnvironment(_:transform:), transaction(_:).

• A TextField provided an Formatter now updates its binding as the user types. NSFormatter formats the text of the field when the user submits the field, or when focus moves away from the field. (67899823)

• You can now initialize Text with a FormatStyle. (72159423)

• While searching, if you tap a suggestion that uses the searchCompletion(_:) modifier, the suggestion list now disappears rather than displaying the single suggestion you selected. (76965399)

• You can now customize the prompt of a search field that a searchable modifier configures using the prompt parameter instead of the previous title parameter. (77988967)

• Added buttonBorderShape, which can be used to control the shape of bordered buttons. (79456465)

• New AttributedString attributes underlineStyle and strikethroughStyle were added to AttributeScopes.SwiftUIAttributes. (78437803)

• Types conforming to the Animatable protocol and also conforming to either the View or ViewModifier protocols now apply animations when their values change. Consequently, the AnimatableModifier protocol is soft-deprecated. Use Animatable directly when targeting the latest OS versions; for example, use struct CustomModifier: ViewModifer, Animatable rather than struct CustomModifier: AnimatableModifier. (76971100)

• The contentShape(_:eoFill:) modifier now allows fine-grained control over different kinds of shapes. For drag previews, hover effects, and context menus, the matching ContentShapeKinds is required to affect the shape of previews when linked on iOS 15.0 or newer. The default behavior is to set the interaction kind. (60792377)

The openURL environment value can now be set and used to customize URL handling in the view hierarchy, including URL handling in Link views and links embedded in Text views. (78551237)

• Task allows you to pass the priority to be used when spawning a new Task. (80599258)

• Text views that contain excessive line height characters now have a larger default size to avoid clipping or overlapping of oversized characters. (80665315)

Known Issues

• You can’t push to a third screen after popping from a third screen in the navigation stack. (79076444)

Deprecations

• controlProminence is deprecated. Use the new .borderedProminent ButtonStyle instead. (78908460)

TabularData

New Features

• TabularData is a new Swift framework you use to analyze and manipulate tabular data. You can use DataFrame to read CSV and JSON files, as well as join, group, and aggregate data. (69982458)

Xcode

Known Issues

• MusicKit functionality, such as loading content with music requests, doesn’t work in simulated devices. (78559381)

  Workaround: Test your app’s MusicKit functionality on a physical device.

See Also

watchOS 8

• watchOS 8.7 Release Notes
• watchOS 8.6 Release Notes
• watchOS 8.5 Release Notes
• watchOS 8.4 Release Notes
• watchOS 8.3 Release Notes
• watchOS 8.1 Release Notes