Apple Explains Why Third-Party Watch Faces Still Aren't Supported on watchOS 10

[MacRumors]

A common request from Apple Watch users over the years has been the ability to use third-party watch faces, but watchOS 10 still does not support this. In an interview with Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger published today, Apple's VP of Technology Kevin Lynch and product marketing employee Deidre Caldbeck explained why.

The interview was spotted earlier by 9to5Mac's Benjamin Mayo, and the quotes below are machine translated from German.

Lynch said Apple puts a "huge amount of effort" into every watch face to ensure they work "uniformly and simply," and said Apple needs to plan ahead to make sure watch faces continue to work "if we want to change something or add new possibilities."

Caldbeck added that developers are able to create complications for their watchOS apps, which adds a layer of customization to watch faces by allowing for glanceable information to be displayed, such as a CARROT Weather forecast. Starting with watchOS 10, the new Smart Stack widgets feature offers space for up to three complications.

That's everything Apple had to say about the lack of third-party watch faces in the interview, which touches on several other watchOS 10 details.

watchOS 10 will be released later this year for the Apple Watch Series 4 and newer, and is currently available in beta for users with a free Apple developer account. A public beta is coming in July for users who do not wish to use the developer beta.

Article Link: Apple Explains Why Third-Party Watch Faces Still Aren't Supported on watchOS 10

 

[DMG35]

Weak. They should allow them, period. It's not like they change the overall shape of the watch, ever. The watch faces from series 0 all work for God's sake on the Series 8 so I don't see how compatibility is an issue. Apple just wants control over the faces like they do everything else. That's fine, but spare me the BS of uniformity.

 

[jz0309]

so in other words - 3rd party watch faces will never come to watchOS, which is actually fine with me.

 

[Apple Fan 2008]

Snoopy watch faces were a long time coming.

 

[Motawa]

kinda agree but there are a few many watch faces that are pretty fugly

they could at least give us a photo watchface with HANDS not just digital clock. This way it would be pretty easy to make a somewhat custom watchface

 

[dannyyankou]

I don’t understand. Any third party watch faces would use watchOS’s APIs anyway, so if they break in a future software update, that’s on Apple, not the developer. Stop making excuses.

 

[TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️]

It should be allowed. We pay a premium price for Apple Watch. I would love something like this.

Apple Watch face concept — Planning view

- Showing how your upcoming 12 hours are arranged
- Current 'timeblock' is highlighted
- Icons are linked to your different calendars, so you can see how much time you spend on different projects

Credit: Twitter- Fons Mans

 

[jakeowens]

This sucks to hear. Apple still doesn't have the apple watch faces that I would prefer to use so I'm stuck with their faces Would be nice to be able to personalize how we want them

 

[macsplusmacs]

All I have to say is way back at Apple Watch 1 or 2, my friend bought an Android watch.

Never have I ever seen SUCH UGLINESS as I did when he took me to the Android watch face store.

Horrific.

 

[mdnz]

If only there was some kind of App Store curation that could block watch faces that wouldn't work correctly...🤔

 

[symphony]

Apple don’t wanna be accused of copying other watch faces

 

[MrGimper]

Ok, then maybe have more than 2 watch faces that adults would use then. Thanks.

 

[KrisLord]

Other than a few key developers I don’t see many being able to make good quality watch faces. 99% would end up just trying to make money out of really poor experiences.

I’m not sure it’s something they need to open up fully, maybe just add more customisation options for the user to the current system.

Custom faces kind of reminds me of different desktop environments in Linux which was always a mess for anyone new to it.

 

[Mr. Awesome]

Weak. They should allow them, period. It's not like they change the overall shape of the watch, ever. The watch faces from series 0 all work for God's sake on the Series 8 so I don't see how compatibility is an issue. Apple just wants control over the faces like they do everything else. That's fine, but spare me the BS of uniformity.

That's not entirely true. All of the Series 0-3 faces were redesigned to fit and scale well to the new screens of the S4+.

But aside from that, the point is that each watch face has to be designed to work with so many things, like the customization UI and how color tinting works with colors the face wasn't originally designed for. But the most difficult part is the Always-On Display. You have to think about how the UI fades when the displays dims, how the minute hand/number can raise the refresh rate temporarily every 60 seconds, how the face wakes back up and the UI readjusts to its "precision" state where the minute hand reflects number of seconds as well, etc. Basically, every custom face would have to be an extremely "good citizen".

 

[JGIGS]

Aren't API's meant to make these types of things easier and simpler? I haven't messed around with customizations since I stopped using an Android phone because it's just such a hassle on Apple products.

 

[iSaul]

I don’t understand. Any third party watch faces would use watchOS’s APIs anyway, so if they break in a future software update, that’s on Apple, not the developer. Stop making excuses.

I think this is more about breaking the design not the functionality. Imagine Apple overhauling the way complications are displayed and as a result they are a different size/shape. That would break any 3rd party watch face. Now imagine that changes 3 more times. All of a sudden you have 4 different generations of complications. Do you support 3rd party watch faces that use old versions? Do you force developers to create many generations of complication options? It gets messy pretty quickly.

 

[dannyyankou]

I think this is more about breaking the design not the functionality. Imagine Apple overhauling the way complications are displayed and as a result they are a different size/shape. That would break any 3rd party watch face. Now imagine that changes 3 more times. All of a sudden you have 4 different generations of complications. Do you support 3rd party watch faces that use old versions? Do you force developers to create many generations of complication options? It gets messy pretty quickly.

Well we’re on software version 10 now and the complications haven’t changed. So I don’t think it’ll be an issue. Even if apple makes changes to the complications, developers will make the changes. It’ll be fine.

 

[Mr. Awesome]

I think this is more about breaking the design not the functionality. Imagine Apple overhauling the way complications are displayed and as a result they are a different size/shape. That would break any 3rd party watch face. Now imagine that changes 3 more times. All of a sudden you have 4 different generations of complications. Do you support 3rd party watch faces that use old versions? Do you force developers to create many generations of complication options? It gets messy pretty quickly.

Exactly. It was messy enough when Apple introduced new complication styles on Series 4 and then later discontinued the original styles.

 

[iSaul]

Similar to others here, I'm less interested in 3rd party faces, and more interested a wider variety of watch face options. I want a digital face with complications around the time. The modular options are okay, but I don't need the big complications they require. I basically just want my $10 casio with weather, next meeting and activity rings

 

[Rogifan]

Is this still really a thing Watch wearers care about? Seems like it would be more headache for Apple to police watch faces for copyright infringement than would be worthwhile.

 

[Vangeli]

I sleep better knowing the immense amount of horrifically ugly custom faces out there are not officially supported.

 

[iSaul]

Well we’re on software version 10 now and the complications haven’t changed. So I don’t think it’ll be an issue. Even if apple makes changes to the complications, developers will make the changes. It’ll be fine.

3rd party complications are still relatively new (EDIT I am wrong)

 

[Sirobin]

I get why they do it this way, but they really need to give us more customization options. All I want is digital seconds, and none of the (very few watchfaces that support it) are ones I want to use.

 

[dannyyankou]

3rd party complications are still relatively new

They’ve been around since watchOS 2

 

[iSaul]

Is this still really a thing Watch wearers care about? Seems like it would be more headache for Apple to police watch faces for copyright infringement than would be worthwhile.

I think watch wearers want flexibility. some think that 3rd party faces will offer that. I believe there are other options