Written by Gavin Lenaghan and Craig Lenaghan
It’s incredible to think that the hugely eagerly-awaited Apple Watch hasn’t even become available in Apple’s retail stores yet – that won’t happen until later this month – and yet, it has already been granted its first major software update.
Why native app support is so important
The software goes by the name of watchOS 2, and in the Cupertino firm’s own words, gives “developers the tools to build faster and more powerful apps running natively on Apple Watch.”
What this basically means is that with developers now given the freedom to build fully native apps for the new timepiece, they will no longer be forced to run their code on the linked iPhone in order to render their apps and make them accessible via the Watch.
Instead, apps will be able to be built for direct execution on the Watch, the apps also now running much faster after being freed from their previous tethered constraints.
A broad range of functionality
Even if watchOS 2 had introduced nothing more than support for native apps, it would have been a very significant update.
Native apps mean that you will finally be able to perform certain functions on your Watch without your iPhone being nearby, including the use of Wi-Fi for online communication. The new functionality also allows developers to tap into the Watch’s accelerometer, microphone and Taptic vibrations.
Plenty more intriguing features
It isn’t just the introduction of native apps that has got many Apple fans salivating at the thought of getting their hands on a Watch incorporating watchOS 2.
That’s because there are also various other smaller touches that are capturing people’s imaginations, such as the ‘photo face’ feature that allows a watchface to be created out of a person’s photo. Meanwhile, developers have also been given the ability to create their own Complications, which are bits of timely information that appear on the Watch’s screen alongside the time.
The software also incorporates a feature called ‘Time Travel’, whereby a user can rotate the crown to scroll through their Complications, even scrolling forward to see information of future relevance, such as appointments or the expected weather later that day.
There’s even a little thing known as Nightstand Mode that you can access when your Watch is charging. It gives your device an alarm clock watchface, complete with the crown as a snooze button.
From communication to health and fitness
If you were planning to use your Watch for communicating with your friends at least as often as you use your iPhone, you will be pleased to read about all of the communication features in watchOS 2. Replying to messages and emails, using Facetime audio, making calls as well as receiving them… all of the obvious and not-so-obvious functions are covered.
The Watch’s communication capabilities with watchOS 2 even extend to use of the microphone and speakers for apps – again, aspects of the device that developers have now been granted use of.
One of the biggest draws of any piece of wearable technology like this, though, is surely health and fitness monitoring, and again, with its native fitness apps, watchOS 2 caters nicely for this area.
Fitness apps on the platform are able to make use of the Watch’s accelerometer and other sensors to record the likes of your bike rides and golf swings, while Siri can also help you to devise special workouts. It’s even easy to share your milestone achievements with Twitter and Facebook pals.
Now, it’s the developers’ turn
watchOS 2 certainly ticks all of the boxes that one could have hoped for it to tick when it comes to comprehensive wearable technology. It just remains to be seen what potential developers will now get out of it, as they gradually transform the Watch into the wrist-wearable computer that we had always hoped it to be.
