Watch overrides audible notification alerts on iPhone

I just spoke to Apple support, and they stated that this is by design. They have apparently gotten enough feedback on this to escalate it to their engineering team. I would give them a call, or contact them at http://www.apple.com/feedback/ to make sure that they hear loud and clear that this should be an option.

So a temporary workaround as mentioned above is to open the Watch app on your iPhone and disable "wrist detection". By disabling it will push alerts to both your iPhone and watch but the downside is it will remove Apple Pay capability from Watch and won't auto lock when you take it off. Hopefully there will be a better fix soon

So to summarize. If you have custom tones for contacts who message you, or custom tones for mailbox messages, you are stuck with "DING" on the Apple Watch if its' paired and you have it getting notifications. Yes, hope this is changed. Cannot live with generic notifications on the Apple watch nor loss of custom tones on the phone.

I had that issue as well. I ended up going into the Apple Watch app on the phone and turning off the email notification. This way it will always send email notifications to the phone, instead of the watch (The way it was before the watch ever came along).

I wish they would allow us to have it both ways.. Someday..

Add me to this list. It is a poor idea from apple to prevent the phone alerting. I want both to make audible alerts for similar reasons. We should have the choice on how the alerts happen. Personally I don't always hear or feel the watch (most of the time I do) but mostly I still want to hear my custom tones from the phone. This way I know who a message is from even without having to look at my watch.

When you have Wrist Detection enabled (on your iPhone in the Apple Watch app: My Watch > General > Wrist Detection):

If your iPhone is unlocked, you'll receive notifications on your iPhone instead of on your Apple Watch.

If your iPhone is locked or asleep and your Apple Watch is unlocked and on your wrist, you'll receive notifications on your Apple Watch.

You can also customise notification settings per app: Apple Watch App > My Watch > Notifications

About notifications on your Apple Watch - Apple Support

By the way, when you have not been able to find an answer by searching the Communities, it is generally best (and considered good forum etiquette) to ask your own, new question in a separate thread. This will also help others (who have the same question in the future) to more easily find an answer that solves that specific question.

As has been pointed out earlier in this thread, the best thing to do is to log it with Apple at http://www.apple.com/feedback/ so that they know to change it in a future version of the Watch OS. The more people who do this, the stronger the message we're sending to them. MST

I am unaware of any other apps (besides Phone) that, by default, alert audibly on both devices regardless of Wrist Detection settings.

How Notifications behave can vary, depending upon your settings. Without Wrist Detection enabled, all notifications will go to both devices. With it enabled (and with the watch unlocked and on your wrist), they will behave as outlined in my previous reply.

Incoming phone calls will always ring on both devices by default. However, these can also behave differently depending on your settings or connected devices. For example:

- You can set the Ringer to silent on your iPhone (by using the switch on the side).

- You can set one, the other or both devices to Do Not Disturb.

- You may have a Bluetooth headset connected to one device or the other.

- You can customise settings for your watch: Apple Watch app > My Watch > Notifications > Phone > Choose Custom > under Ringtone, disable Sound and/or Haptic.

I appreciate why you consider your question to be germane to this thread. Whilst it does also concern alerts and notifications (as many questions do), it is nevertheless different and so merits a separate thread. Replies here should be answers to the OP's question (which is already marked as solved).

• OP's question: "I want to receive notification alerts from all apps on both my watch and iPhone all of the time. Is there a configuration option for this?"
• Yours: "besides the Phone app, are there any other Apple or third party apps that always alert both devices by default?"

Boy, I am glad I found this thread.

I too lost notification pings from the IPhone for IMessage, but other alerts still work such as email.

I shut down bluetooth, did various tests with and without the watch paired and sure enough it pointed to when watch was on and paired and when watch had Imessage notifications turned on you loose them on a Locked Iphone. When Iphone was Open, Alerts would process.

Very strange, very wrong and should be configurable. Why shut down IMessage and not other apps (thank goodness).

Hoping they fix this one, as has me on fence from putting it back in the box.

I am having a different experience. My watch seems to be very iffy. Most times I receive notifications on my watch but although my phone does not wake it still dings and shows unread txt msgs even though I have responded to the msgs on my watch. Yesterday my watch stopped receiving calls. Tech support told me to turn off both my phone and watch, wait for a while and turn them on again. This did work for the caller ID and ringing on my watch but didn't for the iffy txt and mail notifications.

AAlso, when using google maps, I typically have the phone in my doc, but the screen off. The screen will light up when I have to make a turn. Now that notification is sent to the watch, with no sound or vibration, so I miss It. I have to take my watch off of my wrist when using Google maps for navigation.

I sent feedback on this a few weeks back, hope they include some customization on the next software release because the alerts and vibrate is not enough for me to notice so I end up missing of being late to meetings, not answering calls I receive or noticing that someone sent me a text. I would of expected there to be at least a couple tones to choose from but no you only have one choice and that one is not load enough.

I have this same problem when receiving Mail and have filed a bug report...

When I receive mail while my iPhone is sleeping, I get a notification on my Apple Watch. But that notification is not enough to alert me that mail has arrived. This causes me to miss timely emails (important for my business)

The problem is that when the iPhone is sleeping (always sleeping when it is in my case on my belt), the iPhone will not vibrate or play a sound. Instead it uses the Apple watch to notify me. While this might seem like a clever idea, it is very bad because it does not work.

The haptic pulse is not strong enough (even when turned up all the way) to alert me.

SOLUTION: Allow users an option to let the iPhone vibrate and play a sound when mail arrives while wearing an Apple Watch with mail notification turned on. (You need both the Apple Watch and iPhone notifications at the same time).

I have missed enough important email notifications to warrant my turning off notifications for Mail on my Apple Watch. That way my iPhone will notify me when mail comes in.

I will leave the setting that way for now. But it defeats the main reason that I wanted an Apple Watch. I want to be able to simply raise my wrist when I hear an email arrive to see if I need to pull my iPhone out of my case to read the mail.

Apple could fix this in the Apple Watch app in Notifications / Mail / Custom

by having two options instead of one. The two options would be:

Show Alerts on Apple Watch Only

Show Alerts on Apple Watch and iPhone.

The temporary work-around for my email notifications is to turn off email notifications for Mail in the Apple Watch App.

Then on my Mac in Mail Preferences, set a rule that sends a text message to me when any VIP email arrives.

That way my iPhone still vibrates and plays an audible sound when mail comes in and my watch notifies me whenever an important email comes in.