Starting June 1, all apps that are developed for the watchOS 2 must be able to work on the Apple Watch without any reliance on the iPhone, this is according to Apple.
This announcement was made on Friday and it will not take effect until the second half of this year. What the iPhone maker is trying to say here is that all new titles submitted to the App Store must be native apps that are based on the company’s watchOS 2 software development kit. The new move by Apple is aimed at making the Apple Watch a more independent device than when it was first unveiled to the world.
The Apple watchOS 2 is hardly a year into the market; however, developers can now make use of the watchOS 2 SDKs and come up with apps that take their own customized abilities. Furthermore, they will be able to access other Apple Watch hardware elements in the shape of Taptic Engine, Digital Crown, loudspeaker as well as the microphone. These are cool additions for Apple Watch developers as they now have more to play around with as far as this wearable is concerned.
Just last September is when the watchOS 2 saw its final version released. As usual, the update came in with quite a number of new features as well as improvements to the ever-reliable Siri, Maps as well as Apple Pay, among other components. At the beginning, the Apple Watch saw very few developers showing their interest in developing apps for the smartwatch. In a bid to take care of this situation, the Cupertino Company allowed developers of watchOS 2 to create apps that work the Apple Watch natively.
With native apps, it means that Apple Watch apps can now run on the wearable without sending or receiving any data from the iPhone. As a result, Apple believes users of these devices will enjoy a much better experience. Starting June 1, 2016, users of Apple Watch will be treated to apps that no longer experience slow load times, something that is usually associated with the transferring of data between the host iPhone and the Watch.