Widgets added on Sonoma saying "open app on iPhone to continue"

This did the trick, I kept my phone right next to my mac and it did the trick. Hopefully this works for others.

Update: So when it decides to work is spotty, I have it next to my mac and it works at times and not at others. Hopefully this is something that the app makers can easily update to work better.

I have no way to know if this is correct, but I would assume there is nothing for the widget to do on your Mac. If you click on the widget, it loads the associated app. If that app isn't on your Mac, it would have to open the app on your iPhone. It may be telling you that if you want to interact with it, you must use the app on the iPhone.

For the heck of it, have you rebooted since updating to Sonoma? Or better yet, have you tried safemode then boot back into your default login and test again.

Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support (English)

I have the same problem. Some Iphone apps do not work. I am always instructed to open the app on the Iphone, but nothing happens. Continuity is switched on.

I noticed that the iPhone selection box in the WIdgets section of the settings is missing. In the tutorials I watched, there was always a selection box for iPhone. Could it have something to do with that?

I have attached two pictures - one from the tutorial and one from my Mac

pkalellis wrote:

The only purpose for adding the Google widget, for example, is to be able to type a search word. This goes for any widget which requires input from the user. What would be the purpose of that widget if it is not interactive (as opposed to a NYT widget, for example, which loads the breaking news)?

It wasn't written for macOS. It was written for iOS. It doesn't know how to do anything on macOS.

pkalellis wrote:

I haven’t found any that work. Which ones work for you? Just curious …

MyRadar. Any widget that does not depend on data from the app should work. MyRadar widget gets the data directly from the internet, not through the app.

im having the same issue with the widgets. also the iphone selection box not showing is maybe it only appears when you have more than 1 iphone connected

hopefully this will get sorted soon via an update

I wanted to add the Facebook widget just to my Mac, but had to add an FB widget on the iPhone for the Mac one to work. Different format on the Mac (larger), so at least that's able to be customized per device.

pkalellis wrote:

My settings show the iPhone option also enabled. This is very strange. I have still not found a single iPhone widget which works on the desktop. Has anyone else? Someone above suggested MyRadar ….

In addition, I found that TP-link’s Deco widget works on the Mac. It was one that required I open the app on the phone as opposed to MyRadar, which gets its info from the Internet.

I think that sort of indicates it will be up to the developers to make their widgets actually work on the Mac.

Just from the doc

“Open [App] on your iPhone to continue”: If you click an area of a widget that isn't interactive, the widget's app opens so that you can continue in the app. If the widget's app is installed on your iPhone and not on your Mac, the widget asks you to “Open [App] on your iPhone to continue,” so that you can continue in the app on your iPhone

I can confirm all the ones form Iphone on my desktop work for me.

I saw this morning that one of them was not, but my phone was not close to the mac.

After putting the iphone beside, after some time, I got beck the widgets info.

So do you have both iphone and Mac beside ? Did you have them together a few hours ?

So I just added the Spotify widget on my Mac. I have the app installed on both my Mac and my iPhone, but the Mac widget just tells me to open the app on my iPhone. Either I did somethign wrong, or these widgets are a bit pointless.

update: I just spotted the tiny greyed out text telling you whether a widget is iphone or mac. shame most of the good ones are iphone only. when will they actually do something useful?

I have the same issue as well. For widgets that get "populated" on mac, like news widgets (ex CNN), if I try to click on a story, I get the message to open the corresponding app on iphone to continue. Even if I do that, I'm not able to read anything on the mac. Not sure what the thought process was here....!

I got these black boxes that told me to open the corresponding app on iPhone as well. What worked for me is to turn the iPhone completely off and back on again. You should see the widgets start displaying stuff. If it isn't fully showing, maybe try to trigger something on the app. Like for spotify, the logo popped up for me but the rest was blurry. I opened the Spotify app on iPhone and played a song. Then the full widget on the desktop showed up.