“Developing Apple Watch apps is extremely frustrating and limited for one big reason: unlike on iOS, Apple doesn’t give app developers access to the same watchOS frameworks that they use on Apple Watch,” Marco Arment writes for marco.org.
“Instead, we’re only allowed to use WatchKit, a baby UI framework that would’ve seemed rudimentary to developers even in the 1990s,” Arment writes. “But unlike the iPhone’s web apps, WatchKit doesn’t appear to be a stopgap — it seems to be Apple’s long-term solution to third-party app development on the Apple Watch.”
“Apple doesn’t feel WatchKit’s limitations. Since they’re not using it, it’s too easy for Apple’s developers and evangelists to forget or never know what’s possible, what isn’t, what’s easy, and what’s hard. The bugs and limitations I report to them are usually met with shock and surprise — they have no idea,” Arment writes. “WatchKit is buggy as hell. Since Apple doesn’t use it and there are relatively few third-party Watch apps of value, WatchKit is far more buggy, and seems far less tested, than any other Apple API I’ve ever worked with.”
Much more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Which explains why the only third-Party apps we use with regularity on our Apple Watch are Nike Run Club (which may get special dispensation from Apple to use more than WatchKit due to their Apple Watch Nike+ partnership), MLB, Dark Sky, ESPN, and a handful of news apps.
