How to enable Dictation to enter a password on Apple Watch Version 5

whenever I attempt to download an app on my Apple watch using my iPhone it prompts me to enter a password and only presents the opportunity to do so using Scribble and Scribble does not recognize what I am trying to enter accurately. To make this even more annoying the AppleID it wants me to enter the password for is not even the AppleID associated with my iPhone or Applewatch but a second Apple ID that is only associated with my Apple TV Subscription


Posted on Oct 21, 2023 5:25 PM

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3 replies

Oct 22, 2023 2:36 PM in response to biyahero

Hi biyahero,


Thank you for participating in the Apple Support Communities. We understand you're having trouble entering a password on your Apple Watch. You may be able to enter it using your iPhone as explained here: Send messages from Apple Watch - Apple Support.


  • "Dictate text: Tap the Dictate button, say what you want to say, then tap Done. You can speak punctuation, too—for example, “did it arrive question mark.”
  • To return to using Scribble, turn the Digital Crown or tap the Scribble button.
  • Enter text with your iPhone: When you start composing a message and your paired iPhone is nearby, a notification appears on the iPhone, offering to let you enter text using the iOS keyboard. Tap the notification, then type the text using the iPhone keyboard."


Take care.




Oct 22, 2023 10:50 PM in response to Jeff_888

Hi Jeff,


Thank you for your response. To explain this more fully, when I got my replacement Apple Watch (when all I really wanted was to have the battery changed) if came with WatchOS 6 they said at the Genius Bar and so they couldn't successfully pair it with my iPhone running IOS 17.0.3, so I had to leave it for them to upgrade to WatchOS 7, 8, 9, and 10 and then they were able to pair it. I have two Apple IDs... one that I use for everything except one app "Interval Timer" and my subscription to Apple TV +, which uses the old ancient other Apple ID.


I was going to change the AppleTV+ subscription to my regular AppleID last week until I discovered if I did that I would lose all the movies I had paid for under that ancient other AppleID, so I changed it back to the old AppleID.


Now when I pair the watch with my iPhone, it has a whole long list of apps that it says it can install on the watch, but as soon as I tap "Install" on one of the apps a prompt appears on the watch asking to enter the password for the ancient AppleID which has nothing to do with any of my Apple Devices. Scribble essentially doesn't work. If I try to draw a Capital Letter as the first character it works, but the password for that Apple ID starts with two numbers and if I draw them it works, but then the third character (the capital letter) either comes out as a lower case letter or two garbage characters.


The methods you mention above do function to compose messages either by speaking the message contents OR the popup you mentioned (thank you I had never noticed that before) but as far as pasting that text into Scribble I can't see how to do it. The rotating the digital crown never changes from the messaging app to the Scribble Screen and the icon of the hand doesn't appear to get you back to Scribble either.


I have had two multi-hour sessions with a Senior Advisor at Apple in the last few days and she said there used to be a way to cause a keyboard to appear on the watch, but according to her she consulted with the "Engineers" before she called me back today and allegedly they told her that the ability to make the keyboard appear on the watch was removed in Watch OS 10 so then my next suggestion was we restore the watch from a backup with an older WatchOS and if I could enter the password and get the apps installed on that old WatchOS then I could upgrade to the new WatchOS and they would continue to function, just as my original watch functioned with those apps. But we tried to restore from the oldest backup I could see and it still came out to be WatchOS 10.


It is a mystery to me why it wants the password for a basically unused AppleID and not my regular one in the first place, but if the Senior Advisor is correct that on the older WatchOS-s, you could get a keyboard to come up (and if she wasn't confusing that with what you told me about being able to type things on your iPhone which does work at least in messaging) then since all the apps worked on my old watch with WatchOS 10 maybe that could solve the problem ... if it is possible to downgrade the WatchOS.


She did suggest that we add more languages on the phone, so we added English Canada, and English UK, and now in the enter the password screen on the watch it has a down arrow and if you swipe up it shows all three languages but each of them have a greyed out "Scribble" under them so it doesn't let you type anything.

We did consider choosing some language that scribble might not work with to see if that you let you type but neither one of us knew what language that might be ... Perhaps I could try Arabic or Korean but then even if that produced a keyboard maybe the keys would be characters in that language.


If I can't get this to work, at least an app called "Latch" that I need to work to be able to get in my building and open my door then the watch is useless and I will just throw it in a drawer and forget it. At least I can get in the building with my phone but the old watch worked with Latch also. I should have never asked them to change the battery.


On Wednesday I am going back to the Genius Bar and if they have no solutions, or if you have no other suggestions on how to enter this password I guess I am done with this watch because it will be useless.


Thank you for trying to help!


Oct 22, 2023 10:59 PM in response to biyahero

What I meant to say is that icon of the hand doesn't appear while you are in the messaging app or at least it didn't for me ... I just saw at the bottom an icon for emojis on the left and an icon for the microphone on the right, and if I turned on the microphone and said "Capital R" for the third character it would show a R, but then all the remaining characters would also be capitalized and if I said "lower case a" for the next character it would literally show "lower case a" instead of showing a lower case a.

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How to enable Dictation to enter a password on Apple Watch Version 5

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