3rd party watch faces

[UKapple73]

Will this ever be allowed by Apple? It would be great to get some different faces, for example football club official ones etc that you would pay a few dollars for
One reason I think Apple are reluctant is branding, if they allowed say Ferrari faces or even watch brand faces then their brand isn’t on show it’s someone elses
What does everyone think? Is it a non-issue?

 

[testcard]

I’m not sure Apple will ever allow this to happen for the reason that you mentioned - branding.

 

[Strangedream]

Nope, third party faces are reserved for partners like Hermès and Nike.

 

[robbieduncan]

I think eventually they will. They will be on the watch store and will go through Apple approvals. Quite possibly they won’t allow branding. The biggest stumbling point is the efficiency, especially with the always-on display. Anything animating too much or doing anything in the background will probably be rejected.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

I can’t see them allowing it as you end up with people using those dreadful faux Rolex backgrounds which are pretty cringe worthy. Not to mention companies tend to sue over the distribution of stuff like that.

 

[revmacian]

I can’t see them allowing it as you end up with people using those dreadful faux Rolex backgrounds which are pretty cringe worthy. Not to mention companies tend to sue over the distribution of stuff like that.

I don’t think lawsuits are the issue. Apple was sued over their use of the Swiss Railway clock as the clock icon years back, but that is because Apple distributed it. Companies cannot sue apple for users using a custom watch face any more than companies can sue Apple for users using a copyrighted picture for a desktop wallpaper on their Mac.

To the OP: I’m not sure if Apple will ever allow custom watch faces and any answer would likely be nothing more than speculation. Do we have all of the information? Would a complete custom watch face contain nothing more than image files? What if the current watch faces are not images at all but are created through source code or special files? What if implementing a custom watch face involved source code and Apple is keeping us safe by not allowing malicious code to get into the mix?

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

I don’t think lawsuits are the issue. Apple was sued over their use of the Swiss Railway clock as the clock icon years back, but that is because Apple distributed it. Companies cannot sue apple for users using a custom watch face any more than companies can sue Apple for users using a copyrighted picture for a desktop wallpaper on their Mac.

To the OP: I’m not sure if Apple will ever allow custom watch faces and any answer would likely be nothing more than speculation. Do we have all of the information? Would a complete custom watch face contain nothing more than image files? What if the current watch faces are not images at all but are created through source code or special files? What if implementing a custom watch face involved source code and Apple is keeping us safe by not allowing malicious code to get into the mix?

Rolex as one example were going after app developers a couple of years ago who were using their brand on watch faces so I do think it’s an issue. I didn’t say anything about Apple being sued though? Apple most likely just block them so not to get involved.

 

[revmacian]

Rolex as one example were going after app developers a couple of years ago who were using their brand on watch faces so I do think it’s an issue. I didn’t say anything about Apple being sued though? Apple most likely just block them so not to get involved.

Perhaps going after developers would be beneficial. However, going after individual users would be a waste of resources.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

Perhaps going after developers would be beneficial. However, going after individual users would be a waste of resources.

I very much doubt they’d do that anyway. They’d only go after the people creating and distributing them for profit.

 

[rosegoldoli]

i think at the very least they would offer a watch face store. but this would do 2 things

1.) de-value the free watch faces apple works hard on
2.) more money out of the consumer because imagine paying $3-$5 for a watch face?

 

[revmacian]

i think at the very least they would offer a watch face store. but this would do 2 things

1.) de-value the free watch faces apple works hard on
2.) more money out of the consumer because imagine paying $3-$5 for a watch face?

Yep, and if they implemented a watch store then we arrive at the exact situation @The-Real-Deal82 was talking about.. going after developers that use copyrighted material. That may be a can of worms Apple doesn’t want to open.

 

[parseckadet]

I do wonder if the delay has been that Apple hasn't felt like the APIs were ready, and because they knew always on was coming. I can easily see them wanting to hold off on allowing third party faces until they knew themselves how they would implement it. That's a feature that could affect how faces are architected, and they didn't want developers releasing faces that would be entirely broken just 1 or 2 years later.