Apple Watch Series 7 no icon issue fixed by Apple

A problem that led to apps having blank icons on the Apple Watch Series 7 has been fixed, with app redownloads bringing the icons back into view once again.

Early adopters of the Apple Watch Series 7 reported a phenomenon shortly after launch where the icons for apps failed to appear on the device.

The problem manifested in all areas where an icon appeared within watchOS, but it seemingly only affected third-party apps on the Series 7. The issue didn't surface on other models with lower-resolution screens, nor in the Xcode simulator, leaving the reason for the issue a bit of a mystery.

While the problem could be solved by manually redownloading the app, the problem would continue to manifest until either an app update was issued by the developer or Apple implemented a change.

On Tuesday, it seems that Apple has worked on advice from developers such as PCalc creator James Thomson, that the problem could feasibly be fixed server-side without needing user intervention. Apple's solution appears to be a triggering of an automatic redownload of affected apps from the App Store to devices.

Store listings for the apps state "This app has been updated by Apple to display the Apple Watch app icon," indicating they have been refreshed by Apple itself.

It is unclear exactly how long the fix will take to completely roll out to all watchOS apps, but it will bring to an end an annoying problem that plagued Apple's latest wearable device release.