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This is literally the only thing that I miss from my Android watch and my Garmin Venu. Sigh.
 
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

View attachment 2220364
Credit: Twitter- Fons Mans
2 more complications than the chronograph, I could go with that 😊, but it's not a big deal for me tbh
 
The watch face is little more the desktop on your iPhone, laptop or desktop. It doesn’t change the functionality of the watch, it doesn’t mess with the OS, egage privacy and at best allows spaces for pre-approved “complications” to have a micro icon

How would you feel if you could only have a limited number of Desktop pictures?

If I want to buy or make a “timex” of “Swatch” face, why can’t I do it? Is this my watch or Apple’s? If I pay copyright royalties (and Apple will certainly get a cut); what’s the problem?
 
Apple would gladly take a 30% cut over third party watch face sales, and I’m sure that many people would be willing to buy them still. This seems like a win-win situation but Apple doesn’t allow it for a reason I can’t figure
 
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.
The sad fact is that the vast majority of third party faces, especially those by individual users, would likely be as ugly as sin. Nobody wants that on the product.
 
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The watch face is little more the desktop on your iPhone, laptop or desktop. It doesn’t change the functionality of the watch, it doesn’t mess with the OS, egage privacy and at best allows spaces for pre-approved “complications” to have a micro icon

How would you feel if you could only have a limited number of Desktop pictures?

If I want to buy or make a “timex” of “Swatch” face, why can’t I do it? Is this my watch or Apple’s? If I pay copyright royalties (and Apple will certainly get a cut); what’s the problem?

Well it’s very much Apple’s watch but there’s no stopping you using any picture as a watch face
 
I'm not that worried about more watch faces, but if we could have more options for complications that would solve a lot of my problems. Most of the watch faces I like have a lot of empty space (or poor space management), which I would like to add more complications to, or complications of different sizes.
 
The watch face is little more the desktop on your iPhone, laptop or desktop. It doesn’t change the functionality of the watch, it doesn’t mess with the OS, egage privacy and at best allows spaces for pre-approved “complications” to have a micro icon
I disagree. Many watch faces actually perform functions. I think Wayfinder might be the most obvious example. The complications aren't just micro icons, either. Many of them actually display data. For instance, the temperature complication displays the current temperature, the calendar complication displays your next appointment, etc.
 
From my experience as a current Garmin Epix 2 user and former Watch user, there are hundreds of custom watch face’s available for the Garmin, but they are mostly garbage in my opinion. Many have unique designs, but then suffer from poor graphics and/or usability issues. I’ve downloaded so many, only to end up dumping them shortly afterwards.

I’m not suggesting that if Apple would open up the Watch face to 3rd parties that they would suffer the same issues, but I can see why Apple has hesitated in doing so.
 
I disagree. Many watch faces actually perform functions. I think Wayfinder might be the most obvious example. The complications aren't just micro icons, either. Many of them actually display data. For instance, the temperature complication displays the current temperature, the calendar complication displays your next appointment, etc.
I agree with you, Face is more than just background. If you want to change the background, you can already do that with "Portrait" face, which use any image (including from your fav website for example) as your watch background. Face is a little more functional, with certain theme, animation, typography, hand designs, layout, etc.
 
My gripe with the limited face options is the lack of a clean design. I shouldn't have to buy a $1200 Hermes to get a more classy watch face. Metropolitan is the closest. But Along with all the other options I'd like to see more classy designs more akin to a luxury watch.
 
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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

View attachment 2220364
Credit: Twitter- Fons Mans
Either this concept doesn’t make any sense, or that person’s having quite the hectic hour by the looks of it. Maybe if the current time block was highlighted with the hour hand, but even then, a lot of people just…don’t plan out their entire day like this. Not consistently, anyway.

And what if something I spend my time on during the day isn’t represented by one of the provided icons?
 
But watch faces are much more central to the Apple watch experience than iPhone apps. The first thing we see when we raise the watch is a watch face, whereas the first thing we see when we unlock the iPhone is the Home Screen, not an app. So an iPhone app ceasing to work because a developer didn't update their app isn't as disruptive as if a favorite watch face suddenly stops working.
Actually, you can see something else if you change the setting "return to clock." It only lasts for an hour max, but I believe that hour resets every time you look.
 
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".
In short, there is no technical reason why third party watch faces couldn't be allowed.
 
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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.
Why is everyone = particularly Apple - so locked into the mentality that the wrist mounted computer screen can only function as a watch and that all other functionality has to be hidden behind "complications"?

Has it really not occurred to anyone that the screen have set as its primary function something such as a compass or GPS or music console or a myriad of other things?
 
Has it really not occurred to anyone that the screen have set as its primary function something such as a compass or GPS or music console or a myriad of other things?
Yes, this. I'd love to have a face with a big complication like the complications from the X-large face in the middle, and the ability to place 4 other complications in the corners.
 
How about a real color picker to start with? This curated list of colors is the most annoying of it all to me.
 
I’d be more interested in having an App that would help us design our own, not just customising a template. e.g. to be able to position the time and complications
 
Pathetic, Apple.

Many of the watch faces are quite average. Some of them are just abominations.

I honestly thought by this stage we'd have a plethora of decent watch faces to choose from. I'm wearing a mini computer on my wrist, how about making it a bit more funky? How about a Tron face, or Blade Runner? Old school Digital watch design? Or some realistic looking watch stylings?

There are plenty of things they can do, but it seems the folks designing the watch faces aren't interested in pushing the design envelope on the watch.
 
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