I’m trying to get a voice shortcut for a custom Siri Intent working as part of an Apple Watch app, but I’m not sure whether that’s possible. Has anyone had success with this or know if it’s supported?
There isn't much code to share in this case, since most of the code is auto-generated by Xcode, but here’s a quick overview of how I have everything set up.
I created a custom Intent with a .intentdefiniton file and separate Intents Extension targets for my iOS app and watchOS app to handle the Intent.
I set up and donate the shortcuts at the appropriate time. I included an INUIAddVoiceShortcutButton in my app so a user can easily add or edit a phrase for the shortcut.
Everything works fine on an iPhone: the shortcut shows up at relevant times throughout iOS, and the Intents Extension in my iOS app handles the shortcut when I say the invocation phrase to Siri.
Since 20% of my app’s users use the Apple Watch app, I want to provide a congruent experience on watchOS. The donated shortcut shows up on the Siri watch face, as expected. I trigger the shortcut from the Siri watch face, and is handled by the Intents Extension that's part of my watchOS app.
When I say the intent’s invocation phrase to my Apple Watch (Series 3 GPS-only), however, it doesn’t work. Siri says:
Checking with the app...
Then a few seconds later:
I do not recognize that command.
I’ve tried this with a separate Intents Extension for my watchOS app, and without. I get the same results in both situations. It works on the simulator, but not on a real device.
I’ve also made sure I have my Watch Extension and Watch App selected under Target Membership for the .intentdefinition file.
I’ve also tried going into Settings > Developer and enabling Display Recent Shortcuts then tapping Force Sync Shortcuts to Watch, but that doesn’t change the behavior.
Are voice shortcuts for these custom intents even supported on Apple Watch? I haven’t been able to tell one way or another with Apple’s documentation. The SoupChef sample project is set up with an Intents Extension for the watchOS app, which makes me think it should be supported. And, since it works on the simulator, that makes me think it should be supported.
However, this page doesn’t list custom intents as being supported on watchOS, so that makes me think they may not be supported: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/watchos/user-interaction/siri/
If anyone can help me figure out whether this is supported I’d really appreciate it. I’m not sure if I’m doing something wrong or if this just isn’t supported.
