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Watch Face wish list

D

Dascoyne

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 25, 2013
308
8
Palo Alto, Ca
What kind of watch faces would you like to see in future updates?

Personally I'd like to see:

Retro LED or LCD display.
Roman numerals and the ability to change the digit size on the watch face.
Clock Tower face where even the shadows falling on the face reflect the time of day.
If I could completely customize the face I'd have a collection of Omega and Rolex watch faces for fun.
 
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Apple just needs to let developers create any kind of watch face they want. That would be the best for everyone. Everyone would be happy. Im already getting tired of the watch faces that are available now.
 
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One of the things I was excited about the Pebble was the ability to have custom watch faces, but I found most of them to be crap. I have a few different faces set up for Apple Watch but I usually stick with one or two. I think custom watch faces will be a "big" feature of an OS update in the future but there's only really so much you can do with a watch face.
 
It makes sense they're holding back and not dumping 30,000 watch face combos in our laps. They're just introducing the public to basic functions before they crack the possibilities.
Much like the early days of the iPhone with the paucity of apps. Early apps included $0.99 for a flashlight app which just turned on the light ... and they made money.
 
Sun dial a la The Flintstones!

F6DESA7I28W9R74.LARGE.jpg
 
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i can appreciate the picture/album watch face offered in WatchOS 2.0 but it's too similar in layout to the motion watch face. What I'd like to see is a watch face based on the "simple" watchface that allows your own pictures to be the background. You'd get the Analog hands and complications as a layer on top of your own custom background.
 
bh85 said:
Apple just needs to let developers create any kind of watch face they want. That would be the best for everyone. Everyone would be happy. Im already getting tired of the watch faces that are available now.
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Second that, I'd love to get my hands dirty on a few watch faces.
 
I really hope Apple are actually quite strict when approving 3rd party watch faces. I DO want to see more, but I don't want to see 10,000 of them with gaudy colours and celebrity backgrounds.

Also I'd like to see a complication/face that shows your step count
 
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MoodyM said:
I really hope Apple are actually quite strict when approving 3rd party watch faces. I DO want to see more, but I don't want to see 10,000 of them with gaudy colours and celebrity backgrounds.

Also I'd like to see a complication/face that shows your step count
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Definitely. If they ever do allow 3rd party faces there needs to be very tight control over what is and isn't allowed.

I know we wouldn't have to install any we didn't like, but still, they would need to make sure a certain level of quality was maintained so as not to diminish the aesthetics of the watch.
 
The stock complication needs to auto-rotate thru a set of stocks. There also should be one for news headlines, that also auto-rotates.

Even my (defunct, service dead) MSN Direct Watch would auto-rotate both of these.

I'm guessing that w/watchOS 2, since developers will be able to write complications, the above should be achievable.
 
Honey Badger said:
Yeah, that should have been standard with the 1st release.
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I think they avoided it at first as they were pushing the idea of achieving Move calories burned as opposed to steps (which is good, as calories is a better overall measure than steps, as it can account for cycling, cross trainer, etc).

However it would still be nice to see steps at a glance, rather than having to open Activity app then swipe down.
 
SHNXX said:
I would like to see analog watch dial designs more optimized for rectangular case designs.
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Exactly! I think it would fill up the watch area much better and would look a lot better than circular watch face on a rectangular screen. It kinda looks small to me.
 
I doubt it would ever happen, but I would love to see Marvin The Martian on my watch. Maybe with a ringtone "Where's the kaboom?".
 
bh85 said:
Exactly! I think it would fill up the watch area much better and would look a lot better than circular watch face on a rectangular screen. It kinda looks small to me.
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Some iconic rectangular watch designs: Cartier Tank, JLC reverso, Patek Philippe Gondolo, Richard Milles, etc.

I kind of wish the Apple watch case took more design cues from these, but since that didn't happen, at least the analog dials could use some inspiration from these designs.
I mean watch dial designs are centuries old and a lot of thought went into them already.
 
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SHNXX said:
Some iconic rectangular watch designs: Cartier Tank, JLC reverso, Patek Philippe Gondolo, Richard Milles, etc.

I kind of wish the Apple watch case took more design cues from these, but since that didn't happen, at least the analog dials could use some inspiration from these designs.
I mean watch dial designs are centuries old and a lot of thought went into them already.
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Maybe they will add something like that in next 2 years
 
I think some copyright issues may arise from some of the desires in this thread. I seem to remember Apple finding itself in hot water for copying a train station clock owned by Swiss Federal Railways.
 
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I'm not saying copy the design.
An Apple watch with a "JLC" dial would be cheesy and illegal... Most importantly, undesirable.

But dial layout (placement of hands and complications) could be easily implemented without any problems.
 
SHNXX said:
I'm not saying copy the design.
An Apple watch with a "JLC" dial would be cheesy and illegal... Most importantly, undesirable.

But dial layout (placement of hands and complications) could be easily implemented without any problems.
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That's a good point. And, Apple could always license something to add variety.. which is likely what they did for the Mickey watch face.
 
ardchoille50 said:
That's a good point. And, Apple could always license something to add variety.. which is likely what they did for the Mickey watch face.
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No license would be necessary to put sub dials and date and such in particular arrangements.
Watch companies rip each other off much more shamelessly than that all the time.
 
SHNXX said:
No license would be necessary to put sub dials and date and such in particular arrangements.
Watch companies rip each other off much more shamelessly than that all the time.
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Yeah, but Apple has deeper pockets than any watch maker.
 
ilovemyibook said:
Yeah, but Apple has deeper pockets than any watch maker.
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I don't think it matters too much, really.
Many iconic watch dial configurations have been around for 50+ years.
Unless Apple makes it too close to the original (which would mean not just layout, but also font, hand thickness, dial color pattern, etc), there is little that watch companies can do about it.


I guess it's possible, however, that this is one of the main reasons why Apple has not opened up dials to the developers, because the App store might become flooded with Rolex lookalikes, which would be nearly impossible to regulate perfectly (trying to determine whether a watch dial looks like one of millions of watch faces available on the market) and pose legal risks for Apple.
 
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