Apple Announces watchOS 3 With Dock, Control Center, New Watch Faces and Apps, And More

[pelegri]

Yep. It would be nice if Apple had a program to upgrade the watch from 1 to 2.

 

[Mac 128]

Yep. It would be nice if Apple had a program to upgrade the watch from 1 to 2.

They do, it's called watchOS 3.

As for upgrading the hardware, that's just never going to happen. Aside from the Edition, there's absolutely no value in the case by itself to warrant that that kind of expensive program.

And what exactly would you upgrade? The processor? ... but why? watchOS 3 shows that speed is a software problem, not the processor. So what's left to upgrade? All the internals? Never going to happen.

 

[acslater017]

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I really hope Minnie Mouse was a tease of things to come. I doubt they'd release watch faces during WWDC anyway. There's going to be a whole store associated with it, and will really have the greatest impact during the Watch 2 keynote. Considering the rumors of how little may change, they sort of need all they can get to make the announcement special. I wonder if the new faces will be restricted to the Watch 2, requiring some kind of new watch face co-processor? Otherwise the incentive to upgrade will be minimal -- think about it: a simple software upgrade seems to have removed the speed issue many thought was processor related, so if it runs new watch faces, then what's left, assuming no new fresh design? A barometer? GPS (which not everyone needs)? A FaceTime camera (which not everyone wants)?

They always find a way to make the latest and greatest look tempting - especially second generations (e.g. flower iMac, iPhone 3G, iPad 2)

I could

It's possible to get around this by creating the same watch face but with different complications. In watchOS 3.0, it's now just a swipe away.

It's faster to swipe between faces, yes. And it seems like that new speed will allow the faces to become app launchers for different settings/times of day. But ultimately it still requires more user management than I like.

My iPhone's lock screen shows me stuff when there's stuff to show, and it doesn't when there isn't. I don't have to designate a spot for a timer and a spot for sports scores that become useless when there's no info - they simply pop into place as appropriate. I'm patient but I hope that's where watchOS ends up, at least as an option

 

[ipedro]

My iPhone's lock screen shows me stuff when there's stuff to show, and it doesn't when there isn't. I don't have to designate a spot for a timer and a spot for sports scores that become useless when there's no info - they simply pop into place as appropriate. I'm patient but I hope that's where watchOS ends up, at least as an option

I think that that's a reasonable expectation. Apple is touting familiarity as a focus for watchOS. It would suit that goal to have the watch face(s) serve as a home screen(s), then swiping right to reveal a widgets screen to the left of the watch faces like in iOS. Widgets could include Siri assistant functions that would show you things that you need to see given the availability of data.