Apps Rethinking apps in watchOS 10 with Live Activities and Widgets

[ipedro]

Almost a decade in, Apple Watch has become the established leader in wearables but one unresolved gap is that watchOS apps have had a hard time finding a purpose.

Apple tried to replicate the explosion of the iPhone app ecosystem, but unlike the iPhone, Apple Watch is not meant to be interacted with for more that a few seconds. Apps that are glanceable or actionable in a tap or two have found more acceptance.

Lately, we’ve seen major app developers abandon their Watch apps. Apple seems to be rethinking the approach.

I think that we’re about to see a new take on watchOS apps. Apple appears to be setting the ground with Widgets and Live Activities on iOS.

Widgets and Live Activities are both glanceable and actionable in a few taps. And they’re being adopted quickly and widely by established app developers. They’re also small and lightweight. They’re perfect for the wrist.

They’re written as objects that can be rearranged for different iPhone sizes on the Lock Screen and in the case of Live Activities for the Dynamic Island. It’s no short leap to imagine how they can be rearranged for a square screen.

With iOS 16, we may be seeing hints of an upcoming watchOS 10. By the time it’s announced later this year, there’ll already be a healthy ecosystem of app widgets and Live Activities that can be converted to watchOS apps with a toggle in Xcode.

The Watch App Store would list all iOS apps that have Live Activities and widgets which can be called up in the watchOS Dock with the side button if they’re currently running Live Activities — ie an Uber en route or sports score — or the app grid if they’re a Widget.

What’s your favourite widget or live activity that would be an ideal Watch app?

 

[xDKP]

I also think they have some really potential they keep not using. Call it widgets or big complications or what ever, but it just needs to be smarter. The watch face can contain complications, but they should be dynamic - you should be able to have a stack or at least have some complications that can be shown if they are relevant and removed when they are not - like a count down timer, only showing up when active, and flipping back to weather or alarm clock or what ever. Or the temperature complication swapping to a rain icon if rain is within the hour.

Just use stuff more dynamic and make the watch face more a live!

 

[tomtad]

Agree with this, if Live Activities should be anywhere it is on the Watch. Personally I'd go back to the idea of Glances that the Watch has when it first launched. Basically these were essentially widgets that you could quickly swipe between and they lived where the Control Centre is now. You accessed them with a swipe up from the bottom of the screen. You can see how they worked here

They were removed in one of the early WatchOS releases as the focus went more to apps as they became quicker to launch and the Dock initiated from the side button was intended to replace them. However I do feel they should make a comeback with some tweaks, the larger displays now on the Watch mean they could be much more information rich in one screen.

What would I change? Make them swipable from the watch face. Instead of the left and right swipe being just to switch watch face you should be able to add in widgets here. I wouldn't remove apps as they do provide more information and interactivity when needed but lets say I had a Weather widget I could quickly swipe the screen to have a quick overview of the next few hours forecast, wind speed etc; then swipe to my Now Playing widget to change song, and then swipe over to a Battery widget to quickly view how much charge is left on my AirPods and iPhone. One more swipe would then bring up my Fitness watch face that a switch to when I go to the gym. Widgets and watch faces essentially become cards that you can quickly swipe between.

And what about Live Activities? These could dynamically appear as a card on the left. So let's say I have the football scores running, a swipe would bring these up which would remain on screen until it finished, or I swiped back to the watch face or another widget. Pressing any of these would then go into the app.

 

[ipedro]

Agree with this, if Live Activities should be anywhere it is on the Watch. Personally I'd go back to the idea of Glances that the Watch has when it first launched. Basically these were essentially widgets that you could quickly swipe between and they lived where the Control Centre is now. You accessed them with a swipe up from the bottom of the screen. You can see how they worked here

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They were removed in one of the early WatchOS releases as the focus went more to apps as they became quicker to launch and the Dock initiated from the side button was intended to replace them. However I do feel they should make a comeback with some tweaks, the larger displays now on the Watch mean they could be much more information rich in one screen.

What would I change? Make them swipable from the watch face. Instead of the left and right swipe being just to switch watch face you should be able to add in widgets here. I wouldn't remove apps as they do provide more information and interactivity when needed but lets say I had a Weather widget I could quickly swipe the screen to have a quick overview of the next few hours forecast, wind speed etc; then swipe to my Now Playing widget to change song, and then swipe over to a Battery widget to quickly view how much charge is left on my AirPods and iPhone. One more swipe would then bring up my Fitness watch face that a switch to when I go to the gym. Widgets and watch faces essentially become cards that you can quickly swipe between.

And what about Live Activities? These could dynamically appear as a card on the left. So let's say I have the football scores running, a swipe would bring these up which would remain on screen until it finished, or I swiped back to the watch face or another widget. Pressing any of these would then go into the app.

I had forgotten Glances. Thanks for the recap.

The biggest problem Apple has faced with apps on the Watch is that it just hasn't been a profitable medium because people spend very little time looking at their wrists – which is by design. It's not worth developers' time which is why most apps are from hobbyists. What Apple is doing with iOS widgets and Live Activities is getting developers to design parts of apps for the iPhone where it is profitable, that can be transferable to the Watch with little to no effort.

I think "apps" on the Watch should be complications that launch widgets. Live Activities in the Dynamic Island on iPhone look conspicuously like Watch widgets. For developers who've already designed an iPhone app that has a Live Activity and a Home Screen square widget, making it available on watchOS could be just a matter of checking a box in Xcode.

The honeycomb of apps on watchOS should go away. It's a terrible way to open apps on a small screen and only serves as a branding exercise to connect it to the success of the iPhone. 10 years in, we're past that. The Watch is a success on its own. On watchOS, apps would simply live inside of Watch faces. You can have as many as you need, swappable from the watch screen, the Home Screen in watchOS. You can have Watch faces for different Focuses, each with up to 4 to 6 apps inside of Complications depending on the design of the Watch face. These Complications show live activities with up-to-date info, tapping them launches the associated app widget. The side button launches the dock showing recent widgets in chronological order.

Aside from Reality OS, a watchOS update is what I'm looking forward to the most at WWDC23.