Under the Radar

00:00:00 ◼   ► Welcome to Under the Radar,

00:00:01 ◼   ► a show about independent iOS app development.

00:00:04 ◼   ► I'm Marco Arment.

00:00:05 ◼   ► - And I'm David Smith.

00:00:06 ◼   ► Under the Radar is never longer than 30 minutes,

00:00:08 ◼   ► so let's get started.

00:00:09 ◼   ► - I wish we had custom Apple Watch faces.

00:00:13 ◼   ► I've made a few blog posts

00:00:15 ◼   ► and a whole lot of tweets to this effect recently,

00:00:17 ◼   ► and it's part of a larger conversation that's been going on.

00:00:20 ◼   ► You know, when the Series 4 came out,

00:00:23 ◼   ► they changed a lot of the complications.

00:00:25 ◼   ► The Series 4 has rounded screen corners,

00:00:28 ◼   ► and so not only did they introduce

00:00:30 ◼   ► this new Infograph face style

00:00:32 ◼   ► that had these like rounded complications

00:00:34 ◼   ► in the corner of the analog one,

00:00:36 ◼   ► so they introduced this new style,

00:00:37 ◼   ► and they also went back and updated the old faces

00:00:41 ◼   ► to curve their old complications around the dial now too

00:00:46 ◼   ► so they don't accidentally put letters of text

00:00:48 ◼   ► in the corners where they're masked out,

00:00:49 ◼   ► because if they would've kept them straight,

00:00:51 ◼   ► this is actually a little detail

00:00:53 ◼   ► that I think is worth pointing out here,

00:00:54 ◼   ► many of us, myself included,

00:00:56 ◼   ► have criticized the way the old watch faces

00:00:58 ◼   ► like the utility face now have curved text

00:01:01 ◼   ► around the complications.

00:01:03 ◼   ► If they didn't curve the text,

00:01:05 ◼   ► they would've had to reduce the width slightly

00:01:08 ◼   ► of how much text could fit,

00:01:10 ◼   ► because the corners are now masked out

00:01:11 ◼   ► with those little rounded corners.

00:01:13 ◼   ► Faced with the decision of lose a couple of characters

00:01:16 ◼   ► worth of text or round the text and fit the same amount,

00:01:20 ◼   ► Apple chose to fit the same amount by rounding it.

00:01:22 ◼   ► I don't think I would've made that same choice,

00:01:25 ◼   ► but there was a reason why they had to change something.

00:01:29 ◼   ► So they introduced these new complications,

00:01:30 ◼   ► and it started a lot of discussion about,

00:01:33 ◼   ► well, these are kind of hard to read,

00:01:35 ◼   ► or they're kind of ugly in certain contexts.

00:01:37 ◼   ► This has featured in many of the earlier reviews,

00:01:39 ◼   ► John Gruber, Jason Snell, Zach Hall, 9to5.

00:01:43 ◼   ► There were a whole bunch of early reviews

00:01:45 ◼   ► of the Apple Watch Series 4 that pointed out,

00:01:48 ◼   ► you know, the watch faces and the complications

00:01:51 ◼   ► in this update are kind of weak or have problems

00:01:54 ◼   ► or are hard to read or whatever else.

00:01:56 ◼   ► And I wrote this big article about why the Infograph face

00:02:00 ◼   ► is so hard to read, especially in regards

00:02:01 ◼   ► to reading the time on it, which I know it's maybe

00:02:05 ◼   ► a little bit old school to think you should be able

00:02:07 ◼   ► to easily read the time on a watch.

00:02:09 ◼   ► - You're such a radical, wanting to read the time

00:02:11 ◼   ► on your wristwatch.

00:02:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't think that's that unreasonable of a request.

00:02:16 ◼   ► And so, and this was kind of my critique and criticism

00:02:22 ◼   ► of the Infograph watch face and kind of Apple's analog

00:02:25 ◼   ► watch face design in general and my kind of call to arms

00:02:29 ◼   ► to encourage them to open this up to third party developers

00:02:34 ◼   ► to let us make our own watch faces as our own apps.

00:02:38 ◼   ► Like, whatever form that takes, we can get to that

00:02:40 ◼   ► in a little bit, but Apple, you know, opened this door up.

00:02:42 ◼   ► This has been closed for too long now.

00:02:44 ◼   ► The watch is like, what, three, four years old now?

00:02:46 ◼   ► Like, you're not doing a good enough job

00:02:47 ◼   ► making watch faces yourself, and I think it's holding

00:02:50 ◼   ► the platform back.

00:02:52 ◼   ► Apple Watch is such a personal device to have everyone

00:02:57 ◼   ► in the world wearing these Apple Watches and using

00:03:01 ◼   ► the same two or three good faces is just,

00:03:04 ◼   ► it ranges from a waste to creepy.

00:03:08 ◼   ► So it's bad enough, there was a great segment

00:03:11 ◼   ► on Hello Internet this week where Brady Haran

00:03:13 ◼   ► discussed why he doesn't really like the Apple Watch,

00:03:16 ◼   ► and he doesn't wear one, he uses mechanicals,

00:03:19 ◼   ► and he was saying, like, it's kind of,

00:03:21 ◼   ► it's almost like black mirror-ish, kind of creepy,

00:03:23 ◼   ► that, like, everyone is starting to wear

00:03:26 ◼   ► the exact same watch, and it's like,

00:03:30 ◼   ► there really has not been a point in history

00:03:31 ◼   ► where, like, everyone has worn the exact same thing

00:03:35 ◼   ► in a way that that was a positive thing.

00:03:38 ◼   ► So, you know, it's bad enough that we all have

00:03:40 ◼   ► the same phone in our pocket, but for, like,

00:03:43 ◼   ► individuality and fashion and, like, freedom's sake,

00:03:46 ◼   ► it's kind of weird if we're all wearing

00:03:47 ◼   ► the exact same watch and you look around the room

00:03:49 ◼   ► and every single person in the room

00:03:51 ◼   ► has the exact same kind of watch on,

00:03:53 ◼   ► and, you know, it's like, you think about, like,

00:03:55 ◼   ► how Apple Watches are all in sync

00:03:58 ◼   ► with their accurate times, like,

00:03:59 ◼   ► if you could look at everyone's watch face in the room,

00:04:03 ◼   ► chances are you would see, like, at least seven or eight

00:04:06 ◼   ► of people who are using the exact same watch face as you,

00:04:09 ◼   ► and you can watch them perfectly in sync,

00:04:11 ◼   ► sweep that second hand across that exact same watch face

00:04:13 ◼   ► as you, and it's like, on some level, that's kind of creepy,

00:04:16 ◼   ► that's kind of, like, you know, future dystopian-ish.

00:04:19 ◼   ► So, I think this is an area where it's bad enough

00:04:23 ◼   ► that we all are wearing the same watch now,

00:04:24 ◼   ► at least give us more individuality

00:04:26 ◼   ► and give us the ability to have different faces,

00:04:31 ◼   ► and Apple has shown that they are not really up

00:04:35 ◼   ► to the challenge or not willing to take the challenge

00:04:38 ◼   ► of giving us a large variety of good watch faces.

00:04:42 ◼   ► They have a large variety of, like, novelties

00:04:45 ◼   ► where, oh, this might be a fun face,

00:04:47 ◼   ► like the fire and water faces,

00:04:48 ◼   ► like, this might be fun for, like, a day,

00:04:50 ◼   ► and then he's like, oh, well, actually,

00:04:51 ◼   ► I need to be able to tell the time

00:04:53 ◼   ► and have, like, complications and stuff,

00:04:54 ◼   ► and this is all, you know, this is not useful to me.

00:04:57 ◼   ► So, like, there's a whole lot of faces,

00:04:58 ◼   ► and they add a couple new ones

00:04:59 ◼   ► in almost every watchOS release,

00:05:02 ◼   ► and most of them are pretty short-lived.

00:05:03 ◼   ► Most of them are, like, kind of surface-y,

00:05:05 ◼   ► fun to play with, and they're done.

00:05:07 ◼   ► There's not a lot of follow-through, not a lot of depth,

00:05:09 ◼   ► and there's only a handful that are really good.

00:05:12 ◼   ► And so, third parties, I think, are necessary here

00:05:14 ◼   ► because Apple, Apple's never going to satisfy this.

00:05:19 ◼   ► Like, if you look at the arguments,

00:05:22 ◼   ► there's lots of arguments not to do it,

00:05:23 ◼   ► which we'll get to in a second,

00:05:23 ◼   ► but, like, the arguments to allow third-party watch faces,

00:05:27 ◼   ► the biggest argument is the App Store.

00:05:29 ◼   ► You know, the original iPhone had only Apple's apps,

00:05:31 ◼   ► and yeah, it was fine.

00:05:33 ◼   ► It was, you know, it was a good phone for the time,

00:05:36 ◼   ► but people's needs advanced, time moved forward,

00:05:39 ◼   ► demand moved forward, and the environment shifted.

00:05:42 ◼   ► The platform matured, the market matured,

00:05:44 ◼   ► and people wanted more.

00:05:46 ◼   ► And so, imagine how boring the iPhone would be

00:05:50 ◼   ► and how limited it would be

00:05:51 ◼   ► if you could still only run Apple's apps on it.

00:05:54 ◼   ► Well, the watch face is the main app of the watch,

00:05:58 ◼   ► and so to not be able to run third-party watch faces

00:06:01 ◼   ► is very limiting to it.

00:06:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I think, too, it's this,

00:06:06 ◼   ► this is cutting a bit to the head,

00:06:07 ◼   ► a bit ahead in the story, but the thing that I've found,

00:06:10 ◼   ► like, so having now played around a little bit

00:06:12 ◼   ► with making custom watch faces is it is remarkable

00:06:16 ◼   ► how much more I enjoy the watch

00:06:19 ◼   ► when I can make the watch face be something

00:06:23 ◼   ► that is exactly what I want,

00:06:26 ◼   ► that isn't the least worst option,

00:06:29 ◼   ► it's the best option for me.

00:06:31 ◼   ► Like, there is something that I think

00:06:32 ◼   ► is just this tremendous opportunity

00:06:34 ◼   ► that Apple is missing out on for that I think,

00:06:37 ◼   ► you know, in the same way that, you know,

00:06:39 ◼   ► there is a dozen different weather apps,

00:06:41 ◼   ► there's a dozen different whatever apps,

00:06:43 ◼   ► like, the whole point of the App Store

00:06:44 ◼   ► is that you can, there's lots and lots of different ways

00:06:48 ◼   ► to solve this, you know, ostensibly a very simple

00:06:51 ◼   ► or similar problems, you know, like,

00:06:53 ◼   ► if the goal is just to tell you the time,

00:06:55 ◼   ► you'd think that's a fairly simple problem,

00:06:57 ◼   ► that, like, Apple's collection of solutions

00:07:00 ◼   ► should be sufficient, you know,

00:07:01 ◼   ► they're all, although all the watch faces tell you the time,

00:07:04 ◼   ► they all tell you the time in a very consistent way,

00:07:07 ◼   ► but that consistency that, like,

00:07:10 ◼   ► leads to this, almost like the sense of compromise,

00:07:12 ◼   ► that, like, even since the original Apple Watch,

00:07:15 ◼   ► it's always driven me crazy that there was no way

00:07:18 ◼   ► to show a big digital time on the watch

00:07:23 ◼   ► that also showed you the date.

00:07:25 ◼   ► That is just, it is not possible.

00:07:27 ◼   ► The biggest the time can be is where, you know,

00:07:30 ◼   ► almost every watch face, the time is sort of

00:07:31 ◼   ► in the top right corner of the watch,

00:07:34 ◼   ► and the only place that you can make it bigger

00:07:38 ◼   ► is if on the extra large face,

00:07:40 ◼   ► which the extra large face is great,

00:07:42 ◼   ► in the sense you wanna put the date on it,

00:07:43 ◼   ► then the date becomes extra large

00:07:45 ◼   ► and the time becomes small.

00:07:46 ◼   ► Like, these types of things, it drives me crazy,

00:07:50 ◼   ► and, like, these types of changes are the problem

00:07:52 ◼   ► where I have a particular way that I like to read

00:07:55 ◼   ► the date and time, and if I went to a watch store,

00:07:58 ◼   ► or if I went to Walmart and, like,

00:08:01 ◼   ► looked at their watch selection, like,

00:08:03 ◼   ► I would look through all the watches

00:08:05 ◼   ► and I would find the one that displayed the time

00:08:07 ◼   ► the way that I wanna display it.

00:08:08 ◼   ► Like, that is a core functionality of a watch,

00:08:10 ◼   ► and now that I've gone down the road

00:08:12 ◼   ► of, like, building watch faces that are exactly

00:08:14 ◼   ► what I want to look like, it's this,

00:08:16 ◼   ► immediately it becomes just like,

00:08:17 ◼   ► this is a tremendously missed opportunity.

00:08:20 ◼   ► And I'm not even caring about the potential, like,

00:08:24 ◼   ► financial opportunities or the app store implications

00:08:28 ◼   ► or business stuff, like, just from,

00:08:29 ◼   ► it's a missed opportunity, I think,

00:08:31 ◼   ► for Apple to endear people to the watch

00:08:35 ◼   ► in a way that, like, make it feel like it's theirs,

00:08:38 ◼   ► that they don't, when they sit in a room with people,

00:08:42 ◼   ► with, everyone's wearing an Apple watch,

00:08:44 ◼   ► like, it's great that you can have a different band,

00:08:46 ◼   ► but even that, like, there's only so many of those,

00:08:48 ◼   ► whereas if you can really customize your watch face,

00:08:51 ◼   ► the opportunity is that then you look at your wrist

00:08:53 ◼   ► and it's yours, like, it looks like your watch,

00:08:56 ◼   ► exactly how you want it, set up exactly the way

00:08:58 ◼   ► that you like, and is probably unique.

00:09:01 ◼   ► And that uniqueness, I think, is just something that,

00:09:05 ◼   ► like, I find really fun, that, like,

00:09:06 ◼   ► I look at my wrist right now and, you know,

00:09:08 ◼   ► I'm running one of my custom watch faces,

00:09:10 ◼   ► and it's like, I'm the only person in the world

00:09:12 ◼   ► whose watch looks like this, and that feels really nice

00:09:16 ◼   ► and feels kinda cool, and it's something you can only get

00:09:18 ◼   ► in digital because, you know, unless you're, like,

00:09:21 ◼   ► custom-making a mechanical or physical watch,

00:09:24 ◼   ► you know, from a watchmaker, in which case,

00:09:26 ◼   ► maybe you could have a one-off watch,

00:09:28 ◼   ► you, you know, you're gonna have a watch

00:09:30 ◼   ► that's similar to other people, and you kind of hope

00:09:32 ◼   ► that it's sort of in the same way of, like, you know,

00:09:34 ◼   ► if you go dress shopping and you buy a dress,

00:09:36 ◼   ► and you hope that someone else doesn't show up

00:09:38 ◼   ► with the same dress, and you just kind of hope

00:09:39 ◼   ► that there's enough of them in the world

00:09:40 ◼   ► that that doesn't happen, but, like,

00:09:42 ◼   ► with a digital device, you can have an infinite number

00:09:46 ◼   ► of watch faces, and it can be exactly yours,

00:09:48 ◼   ► it can be completely unique, and, like,

00:09:50 ◼   ► I think that's awesome, and a tremendous missed opportunity

00:09:52 ◼   ► to not do.

00:09:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, you nailed it.

00:09:54 ◼   ► I mean, it's so much about, like, happiness

00:09:57 ◼   ► of the person using it, it's about individuality,

00:10:00 ◼   ► you know, a, this is a fashion object,

00:10:02 ◼   ► and a critical part of fashion is you generally want

00:10:06 ◼   ► to appear somewhat unique, like, you don't want

00:10:08 ◼   ► to show up in a room and have, as you mentioned,

00:10:11 ◼   ► have, like, a bunch of other people wearing

00:10:12 ◼   ► the exact same outfit as you, like, ideally,

00:10:14 ◼   ► you wanna have some kind of individuality there,

00:10:17 ◼   ► and even, even for people who don't care as much

00:10:19 ◼   ► about fashion as that, which admittedly is a lot

00:10:21 ◼   ► of our audience, probably, I think there's,

00:10:24 ◼   ► there's some element there of, like, you,

00:10:25 ◼   ► you just want something to be yours,

00:10:28 ◼   ► you want something to be, like, a little bit special,

00:10:29 ◼   ► or a little bit custom, or a little bit, like,

00:10:31 ◼   ► you know, made for you, and that's a very powerful feeling

00:10:34 ◼   ► in lots of other markets, and with the watch,

00:10:37 ◼   ► we just don't have that, and as you mentioned

00:10:39 ◼   ► there at the end, like, it seems like a,

00:10:41 ◼   ► like, such a missed opportunity that, like,

00:10:43 ◼   ► this is a computer, it's a high resolution bit-mapped screen

00:10:48 ◼   ► it can display anything, like, you, it doesn't have to,

00:10:52 ◼   ► there's no technical restriction that says, like,

00:10:55 ◼   ► watch faces have to only be, you know,

00:10:57 ◼   ► they have to only have this aesthetic,

00:10:59 ◼   ► or only have these elements, like, no,

00:11:00 ◼   ► it's a screen, it can display anything, any style,

00:11:05 ◼   ► anything that can fit on that screen, it can display it,

00:11:08 ◼   ► and we have such limited options there,

00:11:11 ◼   ► especially once you kind of care about how good they are,

00:11:13 ◼   ► you have even fewer limited options,

00:11:15 ◼   ► 'cause there's very few good faces,

00:11:17 ◼   ► that it's, it really is a missed opportunity

00:11:20 ◼   ► for this product that should, it should bring us

00:11:22 ◼   ► the freedom of the computer, like, this is a computer,

00:11:26 ◼   ► computers can do anything you want them to do,

00:11:29 ◼   ► it should bring you that, and instead,

00:11:32 ◼   ► it brings you, like, the, it brings you almost

00:11:34 ◼   ► the same inflexibility as a physical object would,

00:11:38 ◼   ► like, there's very little customization possible

00:11:40 ◼   ► here on the watch face, and that is, that is kinda sad.

00:11:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it's funny, because the original introduction

00:11:46 ◼   ► of the Apple Watch had, like, back in the, you know,

00:11:49 ◼   ► with WatchKit 1 and all that, where Apple really didn't seem

00:11:52 ◼   ► to really know what the Apple Watch was,

00:11:54 ◼   ► they knew they were making something,

00:11:56 ◼   ► but they didn't really know how it was gonna be used,

00:11:58 ◼   ► and it was coming out of the world,

00:11:58 ◼   ► and their marketing was kind of clumsy in a lot of ways,

00:12:01 ◼   ► and kind of unclear, but the one thing

00:12:03 ◼   ► that they did get correct in that original thing

00:12:05 ◼   ► was that their big, their big marketing tagline was,

00:12:08 ◼   ► it was our most personal device ever,

00:12:11 ◼   ► and, like, it is the most personal, like,

00:12:13 ◼   ► it is a device that I've had physically attached to me,

00:12:18 ◼   ► listening to my heart beating for a probably,

00:12:22 ◼   ► other, you know, it's probably 99.5%, 99.9%,

00:12:26 ◼   ► of my last four years, like, it is shocking,

00:12:30 ◼   ► other than when my device, other than my Apple Watch

00:12:31 ◼   ► is charging, it is on my wrist, and, like,

00:12:34 ◼   ► that is a tremendous level of, like,

00:12:37 ◼   ► it is my most personal device, like,

00:12:39 ◼   ► it goes with me everywhere, like,

00:12:41 ◼   ► my phone doesn't even go with me everywhere,

00:12:43 ◼   ► but my watch comes with me everywhere I go,

00:12:45 ◼   ► like, it is always with me, and it is,

00:12:49 ◼   ► by, you know, like, as a result, the most personal thing,

00:12:51 ◼   ► and it's like, it's so strange that this most,

00:12:53 ◼   ► most personal device that they make

00:12:56 ◼   ► is, in some ways, the least customizable.

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00:14:29 ◼   ► So we made all these complaints about the Series 4 at first,

00:14:33 ◼   ► and I made my big post, and then stuff started happening.

00:14:37 ◼   ► So I think what first happened is I saw,

00:14:42 ◼   ► right before I wrote my post, I believe you posted

00:14:44 ◼   ► about considering low contrast complications.

00:14:48 ◼   ► So you were basically trying to fix the illegibility

00:14:52 ◼   ► of the Infograph face when it was loaded up

00:14:54 ◼   ► with a bunch of stuff in the middle.

00:14:55 ◼   ► You were trying to fix that by basically making

00:14:58 ◼   ► your own complete set of lower contrast,

00:15:00 ◼   ► like stock complications for things like battery

00:15:02 ◼   ► and weather and stuff like that.

00:15:03 ◼   ► And that helped a lot.

00:15:05 ◼   ► And then I wrote my article about how bad

00:15:08 ◼   ► the Infograph legibility was for telling the time.

00:15:11 ◼   ► And then the discussion started growing.

00:15:14 ◼   ► So Steve Trout and Smith started making stuff,

00:15:18 ◼   ► and you started making stuff.

00:15:20 ◼   ► How did this happen, and where did you land?

00:15:22 ◼   ► - Sure, so originally, I was very unsatisfied

00:15:27 ◼   ► with the look of my wrist when I raised it up

00:15:30 ◼   ► and the look of my Series 4.

00:15:31 ◼   ► I was using the Infograph faces because they're the only ones

00:15:34 ◼   ► that look kind of at home on the device.

00:15:36 ◼   ► And so I'm gonna have to use one of these.

00:15:38 ◼   ► I love the old utility face.

00:15:39 ◼   ► That was always my go-to, but it just looks weird

00:15:42 ◼   ► on this one, and I don't like it.

00:15:43 ◼   ► So whatever the reasons that I had to do it,

00:15:46 ◼   ► it just doesn't look good.

00:15:47 ◼   ► So I wasn't gonna use that.

00:15:49 ◼   ► But my first solution was to say, okay, well,

00:15:51 ◼   ► let's just make a bunch of alternative complications

00:15:55 ◼   ► that are low contrast, whatever you wanna call them.

00:15:58 ◼   ► They're dark, basically, so that the white hands

00:16:00 ◼   ► of the watch feel like they sit visually,

00:16:05 ◼   ► they're much more prominent and visually separated

00:16:07 ◼   ► from the data.

00:16:08 ◼   ► So if I'm glancing at my wrist, the time stands out,

00:16:12 ◼   ► and if I look at it closely, the information becomes visible

00:16:16 ◼   ► in that sense.

00:16:16 ◼   ► So it's always there all the time,

00:16:18 ◼   ► but this is kind of a way to hack the existing

00:16:21 ◼   ► current Clock Kit system to kind of create hierarchy

00:16:24 ◼   ► on the watch face.

00:16:25 ◼   ► And I think my suspicion is for the foreseeable future,

00:16:30 ◼   ► for the next several months, maybe until next WDC,

00:16:34 ◼   ► this is probably the best we're gonna be able to do

00:16:36 ◼   ► to increase legibility, actually at a system level

00:16:40 ◼   ► on the Apple Watch, that if you had a bunch of complications

00:16:43 ◼   ► that were kind of intentionally understated,

00:16:47 ◼   ► you'd be able to read it and see the time,

00:16:49 ◼   ► but still have your data.

00:16:51 ◼   ► But then things got a little fun because,

00:16:53 ◼   ► and I played around with, over the course of the Apple Watch,

00:16:57 ◼   ► I've played around with making custom watch faces

00:16:59 ◼   ► and what that might look like,

00:17:00 ◼   ► but the thing that's always kind of been frustrating

00:17:02 ◼   ► is there was no way that I knew to hide the time

00:17:06 ◼   ► from displaying.

00:17:08 ◼   ► So the Apple Watch always shows the time

00:17:10 ◼   ► in the top right corner.

00:17:12 ◼   ► Even if you have a full screen Sprite Kit application,

00:17:15 ◼   ► it always shows the time in the top right corner.

00:17:19 ◼   ► Like that's just fair enough, it's a watch.

00:17:21 ◼   ► It's gonna always show the time.

00:17:23 ◼   ► But of course the genius of someone like Steve Trotton Smith

00:17:27 ◼   ► is that he found a way to hack watchOS to do that,

00:17:31 ◼   ► using some kind of private framework, API stuff

00:17:34 ◼   ► that I don't understand.

00:17:35 ◼   ► I just took his code and put it into my app

00:17:37 ◼   ► and you can hide it.

00:17:38 ◼   ► - The funny thing is it's subview diving.

00:17:40 ◼   ► It's like it's the oldest hack in the book,

00:17:42 ◼   ► but like it's harder to do that on the watch.

00:17:44 ◼   ► But yeah, it's like diving through subviews in the hierarchy

00:17:46 ◼   ► and finding the one in there and hiding it.

00:17:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean like the way he was able to like open up

00:17:53 ◼   ► the UI application that is actually underneath the app,

00:17:56 ◼   ► the watchOS application, like well beyond me.

00:17:59 ◼   ► But anyway, he started doing it and he took that

00:18:01 ◼   ► and he's gone down this amazing road

00:18:03 ◼   ► where he started making a version of the,

00:18:07 ◼   ► we started off as similar to the Hermes face

00:18:14 ◼   ► that was released this year with the Series Watch 4,

00:18:16 ◼   ► but it still has since like exploded out

00:18:18 ◼   ► and he's just made these super colorful, interesting,

00:18:21 ◼   ► ultra customizable watch faces, which are really cool.

00:18:25 ◼   ► There'll be a link in the show notes

00:18:26 ◼   ► if you just wanna download this project.

00:18:28 ◼   ► Like it's a really cool fun project to play with.

00:18:29 ◼   ► He's made-- - He hasn't just made

00:18:31 ◼   ► watch faces, he's made tools to generate watch faces.

00:18:34 ◼   ► - Yes, and I think you can get a Swift playground

00:18:37 ◼   ► like book for it and so you can play with it on your iPad.

00:18:40 ◼   ► Like it's exploded in complexity and gone down that road.

00:18:43 ◼   ► - And to be clear, can you explain like why,

00:18:46 ◼   ► like how these actually work as apps?

00:18:48 ◼   ► 'Cause they don't work the way other watch faces

00:18:50 ◼   ► on the system do, you don't just get another entry,

00:18:52 ◼   ► but like what are they doing?

00:18:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, okay, so these are just apps.

00:18:55 ◼   ► These are just watchOS basic applications.

00:18:58 ◼   ► So they are no special, they're not different,

00:19:01 ◼   ► they're not actually watch faces.

00:19:02 ◼   ► You don't get a red dot on the top of your app

00:19:04 ◼   ► when there's a notification pending

00:19:05 ◼   ► or you can't swipe up to get control center.

00:19:08 ◼   ► Like you get none of that, it is just an app.

00:19:10 ◼   ► These aren't replacements, but what they are,

00:19:13 ◼   ► you can run them as though they are

00:19:17 ◼   ► sort of your watch face though.

00:19:18 ◼   ► So you can replace the existing watch face,

00:19:21 ◼   ► the standard watch face with your app by,

00:19:24 ◼   ► and the simple version is to just use,

00:19:26 ◼   ► there's a setting that you can set for watchOS

00:19:29 ◼   ► that when you raise your wrist,

00:19:32 ◼   ► should it show you the time

00:19:34 ◼   ► or should it show you your most recently used app?

00:19:37 ◼   ► If you change that to be your most recently used app

00:19:40 ◼   ► and your most recently app is always a watch face app,

00:19:44 ◼   ► then every time you raise your wrist,

00:19:46 ◼   ► it'll show you the watch face.

00:19:48 ◼   ► You can do that, there's also,

00:19:49 ◼   ► I've tried to play around with this

00:19:51 ◼   ► and it's a little bit crazy

00:19:51 ◼   ► and it kinda hurts your battery life,

00:19:53 ◼   ► but you can also start a workout in your watch face,

00:19:58 ◼   ► in which case it'll always show on the watch face,

00:20:01 ◼   ► no matter what, because that's how watch apps work.

00:20:04 ◼   ► - That's a good hack.

00:20:05 ◼   ► - Which is not great, I would not recommend,

00:20:08 ◼   ► but if you actually want it to be there all the time,

00:20:10 ◼   ► that's how you do it, but they're just watch apps.

00:20:13 ◼   ► What's fascinating about it is

00:20:16 ◼   ► even though they're not system level,

00:20:17 ◼   ► even though they don't do what they do,

00:20:19 ◼   ► what they do accomplish and what has been tremendously fun

00:20:22 ◼   ► is that it means that you can make your own watch face

00:20:25 ◼   ► and when you look at your watch,

00:20:26 ◼   ► it looks like something different.

00:20:28 ◼   ► And so I've been spending a tremendous amount of time

00:20:30 ◼   ► when I probably should've been working on other things,

00:20:32 ◼   ► but this was way more fun and interesting to me

00:20:34 ◼   ► and just really compelling of a task

00:20:37 ◼   ► is you start to think,

00:20:38 ◼   ► well, what would I want my watch to look like?

00:20:41 ◼   ► And I've made a fancier analog watch,

00:20:45 ◼   ► I made a digital watch,

00:20:46 ◼   ► I made a watch that is a different way

00:20:48 ◼   ► to visualize weather data.

00:20:50 ◼   ► It's been really fun to just think of what this could be

00:20:54 ◼   ► and then to make these.

00:20:56 ◼   ► Knowing full well that at this point,

00:20:57 ◼   ► I have no expectation that this would ever turn

00:21:00 ◼   ► into a product, would never ever turn into something

00:21:03 ◼   ► that can exist in the world,

00:21:05 ◼   ► that Apple would have to, A, allow this

00:21:07 ◼   ► and then B, I mean, other than whatever they invented,

00:21:10 ◼   ► I would have to port any of my ideas over to.

00:21:12 ◼   ► But it's kind of like we were talking about a few weeks ago

00:21:15 ◼   ► with passion projects.

00:21:16 ◼   ► This is just a really fun thing to do

00:21:19 ◼   ► and a really interesting creative outlet

00:21:21 ◼   ► to just come up with these ideas, to build them,

00:21:23 ◼   ► and it's surprisingly easy to make.

00:21:26 ◼   ► It's only been about a week or so

00:21:27 ◼   ► and I've made five or six different watch faces

00:21:30 ◼   ► that I can cycle through on my watch

00:21:32 ◼   ► and depending on what mood I'm in,

00:21:33 ◼   ► I can set that as my most recent app

00:21:36 ◼   ► and it kind of works and it's kind of fun

00:21:39 ◼   ► and technically, it's really fun

00:21:41 ◼   ► to play with the new technology.

00:21:42 ◼   ► I've never used SpriteKit before.

00:21:43 ◼   ► It's relatively straightforward

00:21:46 ◼   ► but SpriteKit is how you're able to do

00:21:47 ◼   ► kind of more smooth animations and things on the watch

00:21:50 ◼   ► which typically otherwise is a tremendously static thing

00:21:54 ◼   ► but that's kind of what's going on here

00:21:55 ◼   ► and I think it's just really interesting to see.

00:21:58 ◼   ► I think once you give a developer community,

00:22:02 ◼   ► like what Steve's genius was,

00:22:07 ◼   ► it was making it feel like this is something

00:22:09 ◼   ► that we can start to play with.

00:22:11 ◼   ► It was like just giving us permission,

00:22:13 ◼   ► doing that initial legwork to make it possible

00:22:17 ◼   ► to hide the date in the top corner,

00:22:19 ◼   ► to kind of give it a framework

00:22:20 ◼   ► for how SpriteKit in this context would work

00:22:24 ◼   ► and then we're off to the races.

00:22:25 ◼   ► We're gonna make a tremendous number of things

00:22:27 ◼   ► and it's just blossomed out from here.

00:22:30 ◼   ► For everyone has different ideas,

00:22:31 ◼   ► different people are implementing them

00:22:33 ◼   ► and even he's talking about people who aren't developers,

00:22:36 ◼   ► who aren't like, this isn't,

00:22:38 ◼   ► they're just someone who just wants a custom face

00:22:41 ◼   ► on their watch, they've gone and they've downloaded Xcode

00:22:44 ◼   ► and installed it and put it on their watch

00:22:47 ◼   ► because that developer process is relatively straightforward

00:22:50 ◼   ► and if everything's in place, you can do that

00:22:52 ◼   ► and you don't have to be a developer to be able to do this.

00:22:55 ◼   ► It's just a really fun thing that has kind of sprung up

00:22:59 ◼   ► and I really hope that Apple is listening.

00:23:01 ◼   ► I mean, obviously, if we can get this kind of,

00:23:03 ◼   ► if we can get this level of quality watch faces

00:23:06 ◼   ► with terrible tooling,

00:23:08 ◼   ► imagine what we could do with real tools.

00:23:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, and to be clear also,

00:23:12 ◼   ► you can't submit these to the App Store

00:23:14 ◼   ► because there's actually a rule against making watch apps

00:23:18 ◼   ► that mimic watch faces basically.

00:23:20 ◼   ► You can't, it's actually prohibited by policy

00:23:23 ◼   ► but so anybody who had that idea, sorry.

00:23:25 ◼   ► But yeah, and there's, everyone can come up with reasons

00:23:27 ◼   ► why maybe Apple isn't or shouldn't or won't be doing this

00:23:31 ◼   ► and I don't think any of those reasons

00:23:35 ◼   ► ultimately overcome the benefit and the coolness

00:23:38 ◼   ► and the joy and the happiness of them doing it.

00:23:41 ◼   ► Like a lot of people say, oh, there's copyright issues,

00:23:43 ◼   ► everyone's gonna make Rolex clones.

00:23:45 ◼   ► Yeah, they will but there's the App Store for that,

00:23:47 ◼   ► there's app review for that.

00:23:48 ◼   ► Like there's copyright issues,

00:23:49 ◼   ► like there's a reason why you don't go to the App Store

00:23:50 ◼   ► and every game has Mario in it.

00:23:52 ◼   ► Like people try that and they quickly realized,

00:23:55 ◼   ► oh, that doesn't work, Apple curates this,

00:23:58 ◼   ► there's rules, there's copyright claims

00:24:01 ◼   ► and everything, like they already have a system in place

00:24:03 ◼   ► for that at a much bigger marketplace

00:24:04 ◼   ► and it works totally fine most of the time.

00:24:06 ◼   ► So copyright is not a concern here at all.

00:24:09 ◼   ► There's already infrastructure, total non-issue.

00:24:12 ◼   ► There's technical things like how would they do it

00:24:14 ◼   ► and I think basic SpriteKit stuff is actually very efficient

00:24:18 ◼   ► on iOS-based platforms.

00:24:21 ◼   ► Anything based on like vector drawing and core animation

00:24:23 ◼   ► is very, very efficient.

00:24:24 ◼   ► And they already have on watchOS,

00:24:27 ◼   ► they already have things like watchdogs

00:24:29 ◼   ► that will kill any app that uses too much CPU time

00:24:31 ◼   ► very aggressively, as you know.

00:24:32 ◼   ► And like they already have limits everywhere,

00:24:36 ◼   ► they already have infrastructure in place

00:24:38 ◼   ► to prevent apps from using too much battery power

00:24:40 ◼   ► or like getting into a really stuck state permanently.

00:24:44 ◼   ► There's already technical measures in place against those.

00:24:47 ◼   ► They already have everything they need

00:24:49 ◼   ► from a like basic technical and policy and enforcement level.

00:24:53 ◼   ► They already have all that set up, it's already in place.

00:24:56 ◼   ► What they would need would be an API

00:24:57 ◼   ► and I think that's not a small deal.

00:25:01 ◼   ► And there is this thing called ClockKit

00:25:04 ◼   ► that all complications kind of live in

00:25:05 ◼   ► and that kind of gives you some idea

00:25:07 ◼   ► of maybe what this API might look like.

00:25:09 ◼   ► And by the way, complications could be achieved

00:25:11 ◼   ► through little XPC windows that we already have everywhere.

00:25:14 ◼   ► That's already what they are, I think,

00:25:16 ◼   ► where like you basically could provide

00:25:18 ◼   ► like a window in your clock face,

00:25:20 ◼   ► say this region is a complication of this type

00:25:23 ◼   ► and then the system could populate that visually

00:25:25 ◼   ► with the contents of that complication

00:25:29 ◼   ► and from the user perspective or whatever.

00:25:32 ◼   ► So like that's, complications already have an easy way

00:25:35 ◼   ► to be done that's already in place.

00:25:37 ◼   ► Policy, copyright, resource limiting,

00:25:40 ◼   ► these are all already solved problems.

00:25:43 ◼   ► The only thing they would need to do

00:25:44 ◼   ► is change their minds on it and make an API.

00:25:47 ◼   ► And that's not a small thing,

00:25:48 ◼   ► that's not like a trivial thing,

00:25:50 ◼   ► but nothing about the world we live in now

00:25:52 ◼   ► is trivial or small, like this is all work

00:25:55 ◼   ► and the fact is if they wanted to do it,

00:25:57 ◼   ► if they had the will to do it and they prioritized it,

00:26:01 ◼   ► they could do it, there's nothing stopping them.

00:26:03 ◼   ► They've done way more impressive things.

00:26:05 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:26:06 ◼   ► So this is a very basic thing

00:26:08 ◼   ► that I think would have wide reaching positive effects,

00:26:12 ◼   ► more positive than even things like adding cellular.

00:26:16 ◼   ► Like I think it's a bigger deal than cellular

00:26:18 ◼   ► to have custom watch faces.

00:26:19 ◼   ► That's how big of a deal I think it would be for them

00:26:21 ◼   ► and how much of a benefit it would be for them

00:26:23 ◼   ► and it would be way less work.

00:26:24 ◼   ► So I really, really hope that we get this

00:26:28 ◼   ► and I think the time is right that we should have had it

00:26:32 ◼   ► by now so maybe we'll have it next year.

00:26:34 ◼   ► The time is right that we should have this.

00:26:37 ◼   ► - Yeah and I think too there's this fundamental aspect

00:26:39 ◼   ► of I've been making Apple Watch apps since it was possible.

00:26:44 ◼   ► I've made a lot of watchOS apps.

00:26:47 ◼   ► I've made and shipped to the store a dozen apps

00:26:51 ◼   ► and worked extensively on a handful of those.

00:26:54 ◼   ► It is something that I've spent a lot of time working on

00:26:57 ◼   ► and I think the thing that I find so fascinating

00:26:59 ◼   ► about the platform is it still kind of feels like a platform

00:27:03 ◼   ► that other than a very few particular areas

00:27:06 ◼   ► is kind of missing an app story that makes a lot of sense.

00:27:10 ◼   ► That I think the apps that make sense on the Apple Watch

00:27:14 ◼   ► are these very either fitness apps,

00:27:17 ◼   ► which I think make a ton of sense,

00:27:20 ◼   ► or they're very simple data display apps

00:27:22 ◼   ► and things like that.

00:27:23 ◼   ► But for the most part there's not a killer,

00:27:25 ◼   ► it's not like this killer app that everyone needs to,

00:27:28 ◼   ► that you're excited to show your friends on the watch.

00:27:32 ◼   ► It doesn't have that same sense of most of the apps

00:27:36 ◼   ► are replacements or alternatives

00:27:39 ◼   ► to the system built in apps and it's not something

00:27:41 ◼   ► that I feel like is quite as compelling.

00:27:44 ◼   ► And I think what is interesting to me is,

00:27:47 ◼   ► and as a result the developer interest in this platform

00:27:49 ◼   ► I think is relatively low.

00:27:51 ◼   ► Like of all of Apple's platforms, maybe after tvOS,

00:27:53 ◼   ► this is probably the least compelling

00:27:55 ◼   ► and interesting platform for a lot of developers.

00:27:57 ◼   ► A lot of applications, developers and makers

00:28:00 ◼   ► are pulling their, you know, have been discontinuing

00:28:02 ◼   ► their watchOS apps.

00:28:02 ◼   ► Like they're just not a very compelling

00:28:04 ◼   ► and interesting thing.

00:28:05 ◼   ► But this is an area that I can, like it is kind of staggering

00:28:09 ◼   ► to think, I think the number of developers

00:28:13 ◼   ► who would make and develop watch faces for the Apple Watch,

00:28:17 ◼   ► I think would be very substantial.

00:28:20 ◼   ► I think it would be an area that would be very,

00:28:22 ◼   ► people like people would play with,

00:28:23 ◼   ► they just want to play with,

00:28:25 ◼   ► come up with a tremendous amount of variability

00:28:26 ◼   ► and just, it would be a tremendous opportunity

00:28:29 ◼   ► and a lot of exciting, interesting time for the platform,

00:28:33 ◼   ► which I think would be,

00:28:34 ◼   ► is the most compelling reason to do it.

00:28:35 ◼   ► It's just to get developers interested in the platform

00:28:38 ◼   ► in a way that they aren't currently.

00:28:41 ◼   ► And I think on the flip side and like the big positive

00:28:44 ◼   ► is from the user's perspective, if they did that,

00:28:46 ◼   ► I think it would endear people to the platform.

00:28:48 ◼   ► It would give them the sense of excitement.

00:28:50 ◼   ► It would be a bit more fun.

00:28:52 ◼   ► You know, it's like,

00:28:52 ◼   ► "Do you want a watch face that looks like this?"

00:28:54 ◼   ► You know, there's a watch face for that.

00:28:56 ◼   ► Do you want a watch face that looks like this?

00:28:57 ◼   ► There's a watch face for that.

00:28:58 ◼   ► Like you could go back in some ways

00:29:01 ◼   ► to the early days of the iPhone

00:29:02 ◼   ► where so much of the fun was that there was so many apps

00:29:06 ◼   ► and there was such variability.

00:29:07 ◼   ► And that is, I think, something that watchOS is missing now,

00:29:10 ◼   ► but would tremendously benefit from in the future.

00:29:12 ◼   ► - Oh, and it isn't even just about looks.

00:29:14 ◼   ► Like these watch faces could be useful.

00:29:16 ◼   ► They could be apps in themselves.

00:29:18 ◼   ► You could have like the overcast watch face

00:29:20 ◼   ► that happens to show the time

00:29:21 ◼   ► but also shows detailed information about overcast.

00:29:23 ◼   ► Like there's so much potential here.

00:29:25 ◼   ► You could have a weather face.

00:29:26 ◼   ► Like there's so much deep potential here

00:29:29 ◼   ► of things that can go way beyond

00:29:30 ◼   ► what complications can do today

00:29:32 ◼   ► 'cause they need access to a face

00:29:33 ◼   ► and to different data or different sizes or whatever.

00:29:37 ◼   ► There's so much potential here for both pleasing designs,

00:29:40 ◼   ► nice designs, and also useful applications.

00:29:43 ◼   ► I really hope they do it.

00:29:45 ◼   ► Anyway, thanks for listening everybody,

00:29:47 ◼   ► and we'll talk to you next week.

00:29:49 ◼   ► - Bye.

00:29:50 ◼   ► [BLANK_AUDIO]