Seriously, why Apple has not created any non-analogue face which displays the time with seconds is beyond me. But what's more, now that Watch OS 2 is here with third party complications, why are there no third party apps which will display the seconds in a complication?? If any of you out there would develop this, I will pay you many many dollars.
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Third party complications - digital seconds??
- Thread starter DavidTheExpert
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe developers are not allowed to create any complications whose primary purpose is to tell the time.
I think that's correct, but the primary purpose of allowing developers to write third party apps for the devices should be to fill in the gaps for useful features that Apple didn't consider when designing the software. There must be some way around this, it's completely ridiculous that my wrist watch can't completely tell time.
It can "completely" tell time using one of the analog faces but that's another thread.
This is true for complications submitted to Apple's App store. But using Xcode 7, you can now compile from source code and create and run any complications you want on your own Watch.
This is interesting, I wouldn't mind giving this a shot. Have you got any resources/links on how to do this?
I'm not sure if it has anything to do with the amount of times complications can update? I haven't looked through much of the documentation yet, but remember reading about complications having time allocation budgets which limit the number of times they can be updated.
Supposedly, one does not need to enroll in the $99 Apple paid Developer program in order to put custom apps (ones not in the iOS App store) on your own iPhone or Watch... as long as you know how to build from source code using Xcode 7 (or newer), and have an Apple ID.
http://9to5mac.com/2015/06/10/xcode...ownload-build-and-sideload-ios-apps-for-free/
If you know how to use Xcode 7, here's a tutorial on building your own WatchKit 2 complication:
https://www.bignerdranch.com/blog/watchkit-2-complications/
Wouldn't the work around here be that it's not to tell time, but to offer a "countdown" or "stopwatch" complication? Maybe have one of the options in the countdown app, to set the countdown to reset and repeat after every 60 seconds. Likewise for the stopwatch.
That sounds like it would be a nightmare to sync to the actual minute on the dot. Even if that was even possible. I would think that having a complication always running would drain battery power way more than any normal complication that just periodically updates/runs would.
What do you mean always running? Nothing is running unless the watch is on and you're presumably looking at it. When I use a stopwatch on my iPhone, I sometimes forget to stop it, and the next time I look at it, it reads 24 hours +, but it hasn't been running in the background burning power ... When I leave the app, it stores the time in memory, then when I recall it, it references the current time, and the stored time, and updates accordingly. A watch complication would work exactly the same way.
Why it would have to be especially complicated to sync to minutes is beyond me, but then I'm not a programmer. I regularly use ProTools and time sync is very important, yet somehow, I'm able to keep various devices in exact sync, against a locked time code. So I really don't see any issues here.
I guess you're right. I assumed that the watch only pulled data for complications when you turned on the screen and thought that if that was the case then, how would it always keep counting down from 60 and reset back to 60 all while keeping in sync with real time.
I've started to try to make a complication for digital seconds, but I haven't had much success yet. I don't really know any swift, so thats part of it, but I have a seconds counter app working on the phone and watch, I just can't get the complication to update more than once.
The lack of digital seconds seems very strange. There are all sorts of forums talking about this omission. I've personally asked Apple twice for the feature to be added. As have many others. As far as I'm aware, Apple haven't even responded to questions about this. I can't help thinking there is a fundamental issue with this feature. A reason why it'll never be added.
The closest I have come to adding seconds is to start the stopwatch right when the hour changes. But after it runs for more than an hour, it changes the display in the stopwatch complication to HH:MM rather than MM:SS.
But this does prove that it should be possible as the stopwatch complication works fine for seconds for an hour.
But this does prove that it should be possible as the stopwatch complication works fine for seconds for an hour.