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Pebble's new app for the Time is stuck in App Store purgatory

Pebble's new app for the Time is stuck in App Store purgatory

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Pebble has a brand-new smartwatch, the Time, which is shipping to its earliest Kickstarter backers right now. But there's a slight problem: if you ordered a Pebble Time in the hopes of using with an iPhone, Pebble's new app hasn't yet been approved by Apple, meaning it's not available to download in the App Store. If you can't download the app, you can't use the Time, putting the Pebble Time's first customers in quite a bind.

In an update to its Kickstarter campaign, Pebble says it received approval for the app on May 18th, but it had to issue a bug fix on May 22nd. An expedited review was requested for the bug fix, but it has yet to be approved and Pebble can't publish either version until the second version gets approval. Pebble's older app, for the first Pebble and the Pebble Steel, also has a bug fix waiting to be approved, though that one has been in limbo since April 22nd.

Expedited review was requested by Pebble on May 22nd

Pebble's suggestion to those that have received their Time watches and want to use them with an iPhone is to reach out to Apple directly or borrow an Android device from a friend (the Pebble Time Android app is available now). Neither of those solutions are particularly consoling to someone that just wants to use a new gadget they paid for, but according to Pebble, there's not much else they can do at this point.

Earlier this year, apps that advertised compatibility with the Pebble smartwatch (not apps made by Pebble itself) were removed from the iTunes App Store. Apple said that the removal of the apps was by mistake and it reinstated them a short time later.

We have reached out to Apple for comment on this most recent matter and will update this article when we hear back.

Update, 3:15PM, June 5th: Pebble reached out to let us know that the Pebble Time app is now available in the iTunes App Store and users can go ahead and download it.