“At first when I researched the Apple Watch, with a lot that I wanted to do the general answer would be that it can’t be done. Then I realised that the whole point of the Apple Watch is to get a glance of an app, it’s supposed to accompany an app, not replace it,” Ben Jones writes for Medium. “Once I started realising this I looked at how the watch can really be used, not just for notifications but for enabling people to use the core feature of the apps that they use the most.”
“Throughout all of my designs I strive for simplicity. The idea that you can take a complex idea and make it so simple that anybody can use it,” Jones writes. “For a while now Apple have pushed the idea that content is key, the Apple Watch takes that even further by ensuring we use a very lightweight interface with limited functionality.”
Jones writes that Apple wants “to make sure that all the apps created for the Apple Watch are simple and easy to use, no over complicated screens or unwanted components, just stripped back to exactly what we need.”
Much more in the full article – recommended – here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
I think we won’t understand its impact until a year or two after release.
Yet, we all knew the impact that iPhone would have the day it was introduced.
And we knew what the impact of iPod in 2001, had in-store.
As we knew, the same regarding Macintosh had in 1984.
great to see people really appreciating my article and hope you find it useful. Totally agree impaler, I’ve feel I’ve only scratched the surface of the possibilities, you never know what hidden surprises Apple will give us after release, I can only imagine things will only get better
Great article. Can’t wait to see what devs do with this platform.
> Jones writes that Apple wants “to make sure that all the apps created for the Apple Watch are simple and easy to use…
While your points are probably quite valid for how to design for Apple Watch, “apps created for the Apple Watch” will only be a small percentage of apps that USE Apple Watch as part of its overall functionality.
Apple Watch is NOT a separate product that interacts with iPhone. Apple Watch is an integral enhancement of the iPhone user experience, like when Apple enhanced iPhone with Siri or the Retina Display (and more recently gave it significantly larger displays).
For example, when Apple made Retina Display part of the iPhone user experience, developers quickly updated their EXISTING apps to take advantage of the Retina Display. They did not create (new) “apps for the Retina Display.” The same thing will happen with Apple Watch. Once it is part of the iPhone user experience, developers will make Apple Watch an integral part of using their existing apps, not create new Apple Watch apps.
iPhone apps that use the “Apple Watch enhancement” as part of their overall functionality will FAR outnumber apps that are “exclusively” for Apple Watch. This is what will distinguish Apple Watch from ALL competing products. Once that happens, iPhone users who are NOT the “early adopters” will want an Apple Watch, because they don’t want to be “not invited to the party” when then see desirable new features in their favorite apps (that they already use) that are disabled for them (because they don’t have an Apple Watch). And unlike Retina Display, they don’t even need to buy a new iPhone to get this enhancement (as long its an iPhone 5 or later).