App Innovation with the WatchKit

With Apple’s release of the Apple Watch, developers have a completely new world to explore. The watch almost acts as an extension to your phone and tablet but at the same time have its own unique features to play with.

Apple released the WatchKit development package in the latest release of Xcode6, which includes iOS 8.2 SDK. In addition, they released a bunch of resources for eager developers to jump straight into developing high-end apps for the watch.

Understanding the Dynamics of the Watch

There are three major aspects to how the App interacts with the watch, which can be summarized as:

WatchKit Apps

App icons are organized in a cloud like format. Once selected, the user will be able to interact with the full interface. In this cloud of apps, the user can select and bring up all the unique features of your app.

Glances

Glances aims at providing a summarized text about the app itself. For instance, if you receive a message on your phone, the Watch will stream the message text only to show you what is truly important.

Actionable Notifications

This feature of the Watch is probably one of the more innovative features as it allows the user to take unique actions right from their wrists. Things like “turning off your lights” and “programming the DVR” can all be done with this feature.

What can be done with the Apple Watch?

There are virtually endless possibilities that can be achieved with this amazing device. Major brands like ESPN and American Airlines have already found great uses for the watch. From providing real time sports updates to giving you notifications on your flights such as gate changes, delays and much more.

How Apple Helps the Developer

While many of you are scratching your heads thinking on how you can integrate your app with the Apple Watch, the company has provided extensive guides to help developers such as yourself achieve this goal. The WatchKit comes with extensive programming guides, human interface guidelines, templates and much more.

This next year developers will be able to creative native apps for the watch itself, which opens a world of unique opportunities for the creative developer.

You will be able to test all your apps on the virtual Apple simulator as well in order to work out any bugs prior to launching. Xcode includes storyboard support for implementing your UI and comes in a variety of scenes. It comes with one scene as your base and you have the ability to add in other scenes for your glance and actionable notifications features.

Bottom-line

Apple is brining personal computers to a whole new level and with the Apple Watch acting as an extension to your iPhone; you will have a brand new world of development to explore. In the next year, thousands of new apps will hit the market and brands will be able to reach even further into the world of Apple.