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Why do so few devs (hardly any) develop apps for the Apple Watch?

The Cockney Rebel

The Cockney Rebel

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jul 17, 2010
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Surely, with the field so underdeveloped for, there must be loads of apps people can develop for the Apple Watch?

I see it like the introduction of the iPhone, where literally it’s the developers who have made it what it is.

The only third party apps I use on Apple Watch are Streamlets (radio app), Citymapper and I have Bear installed.

However, I have some great ideas for Apple Watch apps, but I can’t code.

Surely this platform is ripe for the picking?

Maybe I’m naive, but I don’t understand why devs haven’t produced more apps for Apple Watch?
 
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If Apple doesn’t allow devs access to build Watch faces, I don’t see a lot of devs flocking to develop apps for Apple Watch, knowing it is a far more niche market compared to iPhone. Simply put, not everyone has an Apple Watch or iPad or Mac, but people who wants an iPhone would immediately benefit devs by them using iOS.

Back in 1980s, stock config of computers was where devs targeted their apps. Same thing also happens today, only it’s on platforms and not necessarily computer power. And this is a major obstacle any new platform would have to overcome.
 
I think that a couple reasons for developer hesitancy are Apple’s tight control over the platform and fear of Apple stepping into their sphere with first party features.
 
I was sorta thrilled when I noticed that my favourite weather app had a version for my watch . . . until I loaded it: just a static radar pic.

Oh, and the Streaks app: very informative on my daily goals, but using it on my watch usually leads me to erroneously mash the 'missed my goal' selector.

I, personally, just don't really find much utility in using many of the apps there (or available).
 
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"I, personally, just don't really find much utility in using many of the apps there (or available)."

I, personally, use :
OurGroceries for shopping
fidme for store cards (Apple wallet for Bank cards or flights or other travel tickets)
WatchChat for WhatsApp
Forecast Bar for weather
Lumy for sunset and sunrise times for photography
Citymapper.

They all sync well with the iPhone (whether I have it with me or not - mostly not) and, for all others (mostly fitness), I find the Apple apps very good.

But each to their own.
 
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Its a money grab by Apple, very little inhouse app development to further finetune the usability on day to day for the AW...

In particular i run my AW U via LTE mostly standalone..

I use Strava for sport related stuff, as it is more useful to me then the standard build in sports trackers. (Cycling is a important one for me)

I use watchtube to listen to podcasts via the speaker of the AW Ultra, as all other apps require you to wear earbuds, and i don't want to be completely isolated when doing the dishes or other house stuff with 3 kids in house that i have to attend/be able to hear.

Spotify works terrible, often does not connect at all via LTE, no option to have music via the speaker, so many thirdparty apps are half baked.

This is the issue since i had my AW4 i tried my best to find the best apps but most off them sucks because they rely on the app on the iphone to the majority of the work....

I still need to find a better/smarter intergrated way for my calendar and notes.
I use icloud family sharing of my calendar but the options for calendar entries on the AW via the native calendar app are so so so barebones, apple really really does minimum effort with lots of their apps.
 
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it’s a crummy little screen that you can only really use with one finger of one hand.

not many people even have a watch. No one needs this thing - whereas a smartphone is now so ubiquitous as to have gone beyond any notion of ‘need’.

so, as a developer, you must have a really good idea and then be able to implement it extremely well to overcome the general crappiness of the interface and the limited audience. A challenge, evidently. If this weren’t the case, there would be a thriving market and App Store. I consider myself having above average interest in apps and in the general utility of my devices, and I have been on the watch App Store about three times in a year. And that was just to re-install Spotify.

The strength of the watch lies in its basic functionality and Apple has taken advantage of this already with its native apps.
 
The Apple Watch is by now definitely not a „niche“ product anymore. The reason is much more simple: there is only a finite, relatively small number of use cases for a wrist computer with a tiny screen beyond what the basic first-party apps (and some key third-party ones) already cover.

Edit: let‘s look at this from the other side: which are compelling, non-niche use cases for the Watch that have not been adressed by now by any app?
 
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We should brainstorm answers to your insightful question. “Compelling” will be in the eye of the beholder, however.

Word games — Wordle, etc.
Joke-a-Day
Pong
Frogger
Sneakers
Train, plane schedule
Multiple choice test cramming (incl. SAT, GRE)
Drink, punch recipes
CIA World Factbook
Flash cards
Pokémon
Video calling
Speech notes
Astro planetarium app a la Stars app under Kai OS flip phone (beyond current companion apps, of which some have gone fallow)
etc.

N.B. Some or all may already be out and proven to be duds and hardly “compelling” to most people.

Oh, and…

Star Trek Communicator
Remote Transporter
Phaser
Lie Detector (probably could work now with access to HR, temp, breathing, etc.)
Medical Scanner a la Tricorder
 
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Saturn007 said:
We should brainstorm answers to your insightful question. “Compelling” will be in the eye of the beholder, however.

Word games — Wordle, etc.
Joke-a-Day
Pong
Frogger
Sneakers
Train, plane schedule
Multiple choice test cramming (incl. SAT, GRE)
Drink, punch recipes
CIA World Factbook
Flash cards
Pokémon
Video calling
Speech notes
Astro planetarium app a la Stars app under Kai OS flip phone (beyond current companion apps, of which some have gone fallow)
etc.

N.B. Some or all may already be out and proven to be duds and hardly “compelling” to most people.

Oh, and…

Star Trek Communicator
Remote Transporter
Phaser
Lie Detector (probably could work now with access to HR, temp, breathing, etc.)
Medical Scanner a la Tricorder
Click to expand...

Some of those apps already exist. Look for “Arcadia” or “Just Press Record”, for instance. I think it is not true there are only few apps for the watch. The main problem is many of them are not too mainstream as discovering them is not easy, which results in not too compelling market, and a reduced number of great apps. For instance, the wHealth app whose developer answered previously is an incredible gem. It is so good and powerful in the watch as it is in the phone. Also, workoutdoors is outstanding. Finally, I think both calendar and reminders from apple improved quite a lot in the last iteration. To summarize, it is improving, but maybe too slow, and of course it is not comparable to other app markets.
 
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jamface said:
it’s a crummy little screen that you can only really use with one finger of one hand.

not many people even have a watch. No one needs this thing - whereas a smartphone is now so ubiquitous as to have gone beyond any notion of ‘need’.

so, as a developer, you must have a really good idea and then be able to implement it extremely well to overcome the general crappiness of the interface and the limited audience. A challenge, evidently. If this weren’t the case, there would be a thriving market and App Store. I consider myself having above average interest in apps and in the general utility of my devices, and I have been on the watch App Store about three times in a year. And that was just to re-install Spotify.

The strength of the watch lies in its basic functionality and Apple has taken advantage of this already with its native apps.
Click to expand...

in what world do you use multiple fingers on your phone other than possibly games?
 
It’s already an iPod, messenger, phone, virtual assistant, and health tracker. That stuff plus the home controls are the killer apps for me. I do use some third party ones regularly though—namely Deliveries, Duo Authenticator, Outlook, Webex Meet.

It’s just not the kind of device where you’re ever going to stare at it very long for one time. The great 3rd party apps for it are the ones that are natively installed, can function on cell data without the phone, and exist mostly to serve richer, more functional notifications.
 
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the future said:
The Apple Watch is by now definitely not a „niche“ product anymore. The reason is much more simple: there is only a finite, relatively small number of use cases for a wrist computer with a tiny screen beyond what the basic first-party apps (and some key third-party ones) already cover.

Edit: let‘s look at this from the other side: which are compelling, non-niche use cases for the Watch that have not been adressed by now by any app?
Click to expand...

It is a strange one. Having had the Watch since the first version there are now far less apps than there were at launch. But the Watch it now far more capable that it was then and I would say it has really come of age in the last few versions with a much more responsive experience and larger screen sizes, and a lot more people have Apple Watches. Had these apps launched now I feel they would have had much more traction. I remember Apple having a whole section in the launch keynote about the Uber app for example which now doesn't exist.

Now coming back to that Uber app. When Apple launched the latest iPhone Pro they made a big deal about the dynamic island and how it shows your Uber wait time in the island and on the home screen as a live activity. But doesn't it make sense to also have this on the Watch? And why can't I also hail an Uber from the Watch?
 
Because the first version of watchOS failed and Apple rebooted the whole thing since 2.0… but nobody cares anymore because the money is not there.
 
Between the severely constrained hardware and the not-fully-baked software, the first few years of development for the Apple Watch were a very rough experience. A lot of developers, including big names like Instagram and Tinder, had Apple Watch apps once upon a time. Not anymore.

Even though the hardware is far more capable and the software far more mature, I think the problem remains that unlike the iPhone, the Apple Watch isn't really seen as an app platform as such. The iPhone definitely is — "there's an app for that" trained a lot of people into thinking the iPhone was more or less an empty vessel that you poured apps into, so the thing could basically become whatever you wanted it to be.

Even Apple didn't really know what the Apple Watch was really for when they first launched it. They tried the same "three devices in one" pitch in 2014 that they did with the iPhone in 2007, but really the only one of the three big ideas that Apple pitched when they announced the Apple Watch that has stuck around long-term is the health and fitness tracking capabilities.

So among a lot of potential or even current users there's this perception now — and you can argue whether it's valid or not — that the Apple Watch is more or less a Fitbit on steroids. That it's not the "many devices in one" kind of thing that the iPhone is. I think that drives less exploration of the App Store for most users of the Apple Watch, and when developers see little interest in either their apps or the platform as a whole, they divert their attention and effort to the platforms that will result in some kind of positive return for them.

None of this is to say there are no good third-party apps for the Apple Watch; there absolutely are, and I use quite a few of them. But it's a largely untapped market and will likely remain so without some serious outreach and/or marketing push from Apple.
 
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The Cockney Rebel said:
Surely, with the field so underdeveloped for, there must be loads of apps people can develop for the Apple Watch?

I see it like the introduction of the iPhone, where literally it’s the developers who have made it what it is.

The only third party apps I use on Apple Watch are Streamlets (radio app), Citymapper and I have Bear installed.

However, I have some great ideas for Apple Watch apps, but I can’t code.

Surely this platform is ripe for the picking?

Maybe I’m naive, but I don’t understand why devs haven’t produced more apps for Apple Watch?
Click to expand...
Ok, have to admit that until reading this thread I didn’t know that there is a Watch AppStore…

Must look at it sometime but on such a small screen?

I’d only looked at which of my iOS apps have Watch apps listed in the iOS Watch app.

One thing I don’t understand is why calls from iOS apps like Signal and Skype don’t come through on the Watch (like Phone and FaceTime calls do). I thought that in the latest OSes an API (or whatever they’re called) had been added to make this work?
 
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Because people are not willing to pay for apps and expect that everything should be free or a $1 lifetime purchase.

Just try making your app a subscription, and the pitchforks come out.
 
Jackbequickly said:
It is all about money!
Click to expand...
For the most part, yes. It costs a developer money for the dev account to be able to publish apps, money for any equipment, and sometimes money for a backend server. Admittedly, maybe not too much. The time to write is one thing, but there is also the time to maintain and support that could be worth it if money is coming in. Maybe go freemium to make it worth while to the dev with ads. Micro transactions, subs, or up-front purchasing might also be workable. Customers don’t tolerate much, ads on a watch don’t work well, so it often comes back as more effort than reward for the dev. This is from an indie dev POV, where loss-leaders and long ROI curves don’t make a ton of sense.
 
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