I'd like to be able to get to more of my Watch apps as quickly as possible and I had a thought about how that could be done. It feels to me a bit like the sort of slightly nerdy hack that apps for jailbroken phones sometimes offer so maybe only for the enthusiast but if Apple were to offer it in a future WatchOS release I'm curious how many people might use it.
The feature is pretty straight forward and would effectively be disabled by default. The only visible change would be in the iPhone Watch app where you set up your watch faces and every appropriate(*) face, as well as the complications already offered by that face, would have an additional 12 not "Complications" but "Applications" that could be set. Instead of Complications being in positions like "Top Left" "Bottom Middle" etc the Applications would be at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, .... 12 and for each application slot there would be a drop-down menu in the watch face setup where you could select an application on the Watch to be launched or select "Disabled" to not launch anything from that slot. By default all 12 Application slots would be set to disabled so that people would not get unexpected behaviour.
(*) Some faces such as Memoji, Artist, Astronomy etc don't have hour markers of any kind so it wouldn't really be appropriate for those, or maybe it would be if it turned out that people could accurately press on the right areas without visual cues. Not sure on that one but now an issue for me since I use the Utility face.
I'm guessing most people have joined the dots by now. This feature is turning each of the 12 hour markers on a clock face into a potential tap-point that a user could press on to launch an application of their choosing. There would be no visual indication on the clock faces, they would still look exactly as they do now and display whatever style of markers the user has chosen for the face, it's just that now they could all potentially do something if pressed.
I personally would program up all 12 of my markers and maybe group them logically (to me) to help me remember them e.g. I might have the right half (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) being my general utilities (Phone, Messages, Calculator, Maps, Uber, Home(kit)) and the other half (7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12) my health apps (Workouts, Activity, Heart, Blood-Ox, Breath, and one other). People who have big fingers and kept pressing the wrong area, or who didn't think they could remember 12 assignments, could simply map only some of the hour markers e.g. only 12, 3, 6 & 9.
So, what do people think? Useful or crazy over-the-top geekery?
The feature is pretty straight forward and would effectively be disabled by default. The only visible change would be in the iPhone Watch app where you set up your watch faces and every appropriate(*) face, as well as the complications already offered by that face, would have an additional 12 not "Complications" but "Applications" that could be set. Instead of Complications being in positions like "Top Left" "Bottom Middle" etc the Applications would be at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, .... 12 and for each application slot there would be a drop-down menu in the watch face setup where you could select an application on the Watch to be launched or select "Disabled" to not launch anything from that slot. By default all 12 Application slots would be set to disabled so that people would not get unexpected behaviour.
(*) Some faces such as Memoji, Artist, Astronomy etc don't have hour markers of any kind so it wouldn't really be appropriate for those, or maybe it would be if it turned out that people could accurately press on the right areas without visual cues. Not sure on that one but now an issue for me since I use the Utility face.
I'm guessing most people have joined the dots by now. This feature is turning each of the 12 hour markers on a clock face into a potential tap-point that a user could press on to launch an application of their choosing. There would be no visual indication on the clock faces, they would still look exactly as they do now and display whatever style of markers the user has chosen for the face, it's just that now they could all potentially do something if pressed.
I personally would program up all 12 of my markers and maybe group them logically (to me) to help me remember them e.g. I might have the right half (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) being my general utilities (Phone, Messages, Calculator, Maps, Uber, Home(kit)) and the other half (7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12) my health apps (Workouts, Activity, Heart, Blood-Ox, Breath, and one other). People who have big fingers and kept pressing the wrong area, or who didn't think they could remember 12 assignments, could simply map only some of the hour markers e.g. only 12, 3, 6 & 9.
So, what do people think? Useful or crazy over-the-top geekery?
