iOS News app notifications on Apple Watch will not disable

First: I'm a big fan of turning notifications off on my Apple Watch on a per-app basis. I finely tune what comes to my watch and what doesn't.


iOS News app will not stop coming to my watch even though I have disabled it.


Here are some other steps I've taken (along with Apple support on twitter, who I'm not sure even understands what I'm talking about):


Tried disabling other apps to make sure it isn't a system-wide issue: done, those apps do not push to apple watch after I disable them

Rebooted phone and watch: done

Unpaired and then re-paired watch: done

Switched News' notification toggle on and off several times (leaving it at off): done

Turned of all apps' ability to use background app refresh: done


Still getting notifications from News on my watch. I use News occasionally so I don't want to just delete it, and I like the notifications on my phone. Up until now I've never had a problem disabling notifications to my watch.


Using Apple Watch 1st generation (before the Series 1/2) and iPhone 7 Plus. Both updated to latest software (Watch 3.1, iOS 10.1.1)

Apple Watch, iOS 10.1.1

Posted on Dec 8, 2016 5:25 PM

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Posted on Nov 15, 2017 2:41 PM

This article solved the problem for me:


https://www.imore.com/how-customize-news-app-and-turn-notifications-apple-watch


Key Take Away: You need to go into your Apple News app on your iPhone and adjust the notification settings there. It was ridiculously difficult to find this simple solution.

22 replies

Mar 22, 2017 4:52 PM in response to appdisc

No. If you look in the Watch app on the iPhone, under the Notifications section, there is a long list of apps where you can click to customize the notifications. There is no News option there. But under that, theres a "Mirror iPhone Alerts From:" section, and there is a News switch there. I have that disabled. My guess is that these Notifications aren't considered "mirrored" so they're slipping between the two preferences.

Sep 21, 2017 9:29 AM in response to rokchokkc

September 21 2017. STILL have the same problem of News notifications pinging my Watch when I've turned off all notifications on phone and watch. This might not be the immediate/best place to report such problems, but if Apple staff (and I understand they are shorthanded what with Apple's cash flow issues <:) don't monitor this site and report up the chain of command, I'd be very surprised. Apple, your quality control is steadily slipping.

Mar 6, 2017 3:13 PM in response to jaymacdougal

So, apparently you need to turn off the News notifications through the News iPhone app; tap on Favorites, then on the bell on the top-left part of the screen. Then you can individually turn off news channel notifications there. Somehow those notifications and the notifications in the watch are intrinsically connected. Source: http://apple.stackexchange.com/a/271443

Mar 19, 2017 5:57 PM in response to jaymacdougal

I think the problem is that there is not an Apple News specific option in the "Watch" app on iPhone. This is, of course, where you can configure all the Watch settings.


All other Watch apps have their own individual configurations except for Apple News. If you look under "Notifications", there is only an option to mirror notifications for the Apple News app.


So it seems that you can't control the Watch notifications for Apple News unless you mirror your iPhone and turn notifications off there too, which means no notifications at all! I'm guessing this was just an omission and will be updated in future.

Dec 8, 2016 5:35 PM in response to jaymacdougal

Hi


It may help to follow these steps:


On your iPhone, in the Watch app, go to: My Watch > Notifications - toggle the setting for News on and then off again, allowing a few moments in between.


Close the Watch app and then restart both your iPhone and your watch:

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iOS News app notifications on Apple Watch will not disable

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