When do you think Apple will allow us to completely design our own watch faces?

[The Cockney Rebel]

Surely this will be a thing, at some point?

Allow us to put complications exactly where we want, and at whatever size we choose. Design our own dial, colours etc.

At the moment, there's only one face that I use most of the time.

 

[PaladinGuy]

My guess is never. I’d love some customizability, but I think there’s so much risk to the stability of the platform. I don’t think Apple wants to risk taking the blame for poor performance that’s caused by third party watch faces.

 

[ericwn]

I think Apple wants to keep absolute tabs on the key aspects of the watchOS design. Too much customisation is not on their roadmap.

 

[MisterSavage]

Every year I hope for it and every year I'm disappointed. I still don't have a face I'm 100% happy with. The "artsy" faces they add are amusing but not what I would wear the majority of the time.

 

[The Cockney Rebel]

Every year I hope for it and every year I'm disappointed. I still don't have a face I'm 100% happy with. The "artsy" faces they add are amusing but not what I would wear the majority of the time.

What is your go-to face?

I tend to use Activity Analog mostly, now.

 

[The Cockney Rebel]

My guess is never. I’d love some customizability, but I think there’s so much risk to the stability of the platform. I don’t think Apple wants to risk taking the blame for poor performance that’s caused by third party watch faces.

I wasn’t referring to 3rd party faces.

I’m speaking about modular design, for want of a better term.

Like fist starting with digital, or analog face. Then moving on to complications, exactly where we want them. Then a colour palette, etc.

I think this should be feasible.

 

[jz0309]

people have been asking for this for 7 years ... and will continue to ask for it for the next 7 years ... ain't happening

 

[MisterSavage]

I wasn’t referring to 3rd party faces.

I’m speaking about modular design, for want of a better term.

Like fist starting with digital, or analog face. Then moving on to complications, exactly where we want them. Then a colour palette, etc.

I think this should be feasible.

I'm using modular. Drives me batty that I can't use the big complication space in the middle for a large digital time. Then have some complications above and below it. So simple but not allowed.

 

[BigMcGuire]

I've been using Modular since the AW3. The most common watch face I see is Modular as well but not by a lot.

I doubt Apple will ever allow us to customize the AW face. I too wish I could put the time in the middle - with seconds. Instead I have to use one of the complications for seconds and switch between weather and activity for the middle (big) complication.

 

[antiprotest]

Never. Just like the iPhone.

 

[Danfango]

Yeah it's a never that one.

Just remember while you might be an acceptable designer, most people aren't and in fact are complete morons when it comes to design. They don't want brand association with those morons!

The product I work on suffers a similar problem. You can choose three primary colours for "accent", "background" and "labels". Users are given free reign. Of course someone picked pure blue, red and green for these colours and included a screenshot of it in some marketing fluff. Next thing we know everyone thinks our product looks like ass. 🤦🏻‍♂️

 

[Ctrlos]

Apple know that their software provides a visual branding element to their products. This is why iOS and WatchOS lack many customisation options found on Google platforms. To Apple allowing the user such customisation is like Nike allowing you to replace the tick with your own logo on a pair of sneakers.

 

[Analog Kid]

Apple definitely wants to control the aesthetics— fonts, shapes, matching the color palette to the bands, etc.

There‘s also a technical constraint as well— they need to provide developers with a few basic form factors for complications. Asking every app developer to make their complications too variable will further reduce the number of quality complications.

I do have to say though that the more unique, playful faces lose some charm when I realize they aren’t unique. I’d be more likely to use a quirky face to express myself if I wasn’t forced to choose the preinstalled “Quirky” face that’s the same on every unit sold.

I’ve come to favor the more utilitarian info based faces.

 

[Reggaenald]

Not gonna happen.
Just recently got an AW and the face selection is mediocre at best.
Too few digital faces, redundant or useless compilations, wasted space and ridiculously limiting designs aren’t “truly personal”.
I like the watch, but the faces are mostly useless IMO

 

[Howard2k]

I don't see it happening.

1) Licensing. They don't want people creating duplicates of Hermes faces. And Hermes probably doesn't want some clown's horrible knock off attempting to be passed off as Hermes (it would happen). And

2) because there would be a glut of absurdly ugly Apple Watches around. Apple probably doesn't want JimBob's garish watch face being seen as representative of their product.

 

[thefourthpope]

I just wish they were a bit more open in terms of which complications go where. Like, I want to use solar graph but show the roughly complication instead of the time...or even turn off the time altogether.

It would be my ultimate beach face

 

[boss.king]

"Never" seems like the most obvious option. Watch faces are a big part of how they differentiate the different models, there's no chance they choose to throw that away.

 

[aries81]

or even turn off the time altogether.

well that defeats the purpose of a watch, doesn't it.

 

[ian87w]

I'd say never. Apple is keen in keeping certain aesthetics to their own liking. I mean we cannot even re-arrange icons on iOS homescreen ourselves. The Apple Watch face is very small canvas as well, thus Apple probably don't want to risk any "mess" on it.

 

[aries81]

I mean we cannot even re-arrange icons on iOS homescreen ourselves.

huh? Sure we can.

 

[alanvitek]

Utility and Meridian are my go to’s most of time — I like the analog faces and complications to have a bit of meta data.

I do like the moon one graphically, but I usually go back to my other two after a short while.

 

[The Cockney Rebel]

Utility and Meridian are my go to’s most of time — I like the analog faces and complications to have a bit of meta data.

I do like the moon one graphically, but I usually go back to my other two after a short while.

Do you think there will come a time where we'll have full access to produce exactly how we want our faces to look?

 

[thefourthpope]

well that defeats the purpose of a watch, doesn't it.

Not if, as I put in my post, you replace the time with a complication that approximates the time (in my example, Roughly) or, again as I had in my example, you use a watch face like solar graph that demonstrates time as a function of the sun rather than numbers.

 

[blen]

Never. Too risky for the brand with the ugly “watch faces” already out there.

 

[Choco Taco]

At the rate they're going ... approximately never.