In many respects, the Apple Watch is rather like the first iPhone or iPad – a blank canvas for developers’ bright ideas. This time the paint is WatchKit, the development framework that Apple was due to publish just as we went to press.
WatchKit is coming in two parts. The first set of APIs will give developers access to two key sets of features: Glances, which enable apps to be swiped up in the same way you swipe up Control Center in iOS, and Actionable Notifications, which alert the user to something and enable them to do something with it, such as replying to a message or sending a command to a nearby device.
That’s part one. Part two is when things get much more interesting, because that’s when developers get the whole WatchKit toolkit to create native Apple Watch apps. While some of Apple’s pals will no doubt get early access, we wouldn’t be surprised if most developers don’t get the second bit of WatchKit until WWDC, alongside the second generation of the Watch OS. Apple’s press release certainly hints at that when it says “starting later next year, developers will be able to create fully native apps for Apple Watch.”
What will those apps be? We don’t know, and that’s what’s so exciting: it’s a brand new category, and if developers are even half as innovative as they’ve been on iOS we’re going to wear some amazing things.
It is a smart watch version of Apple...
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