SAN FRANCISCO—All of the Apple Watch's third-party applications so far have used WatchKit, a small SDK that limits apps' functionality and UI and restricts them from using all the watch's underlying hardware. At its WWDC keynote today, Apple announced that it would be moving beyond WatchKit and giving its third-party developers a more capable, native SDK that can take advantage of more of the Apple Watch's features.
With WatchOS 2 and the native SDK, third-party apps will be able to do more of the things that Apple's first-party apps can do. Devs can also have an easier time working on difficult or impossible to execute apps like games. With native apps, the processing that goes into each application will run on the watch itself rather than on its companion phone. The native SDK gives developers access to the Digital Crown, the haptic feedback motor, the heart rate sensor, the microphone, the accelerometer, and other hardware, all things that the mostly static, phone-reliant WatchKit apps can't access. Fitness apps on the watch will be able to integrate with OS' native fitness tracking.
As Apple had previously discussed, the native SDK will roll out in two stages. Developers will get access to a preview version next week so they can begin developing and testing their native apps. A full version (and, along with it, native third-party Apple Watch apps in the App Store) will follow in the fall—we'd expect a release date that coincides with iOS 9.
WatchOS 2 will include some new watch faces—a photo gallery face that will show you a different picture every time your raise your wrist and a timelapse face that will show a local landmark. A new time travel feature will let you use the crown to roll the time forward temporarily to see future appointments and events, weather expectations, and so on. Developers will also be able to write their own complications for watch faces. Drawing on the watch face will support multiple colors, WatchOS 2 will support replying to e-mails from the timepiece—transcribed by Siri—and FaceTime audio calls will also be supported.
Apple is also promising richer Siri integration, such as control over HomeKit appliances and switching to different watch glances with Siri commands.
reader comments
20