A longstanding request from Apple Watch fans is support for third party custom watch faces.
The thread below is a review of third party FitBit faces:
Click or tap on the first one, then start scrolling. My favorite comment, from Benjamin Mayo:
> When you look at the examples in this thread, you start to think Apple might have a point in not allowing third party faces on Apple Watch.
Scroll through the thread, read the comments. Interesting.
[H/T Benjamin Mayo]
Yes, this exactly. It’s whole reason why Apple has been anti-skin since Mac OS 8 days. In theory it seems cool to be able to create your own skins, but it always ends up in most cases being unusable ugly design.
WinAmp, now that was a blast from the past!
I had an argument for skins all ready, then you threw that gem out. It’s gone now.
Yea, no duh. I’ve known this since the first Watch. Seeing the amount of design care that went into each Watch face, its obvious to me Apple didn’t want to mix in poorly designed 3rd party faces alongside Apple’s beautiful faces.
And yes, Apple Watch does have beautiful, well-designed faces that were unique at launch and horology inspired. Even the overall look of the hands, with the second hand being color coordinated to the complications, was distinct and unique. Customizable complications? “Complication” was new vocabulary to non-watch enthusiasts before the Apple Watch.
Nothing worthwhile is easily obtained. It seems that few, if any, outside the Apple culture are willing to put out sufficient effort to obtain such—Microsoft included.
“When you look at the examples in this thread, you start to think Apple might have a point in not allowing third party faces on Apple Watch.”
Anyone who lived through the WinAmp era already knew this. Third party themes are shit, and are most often allowed because a company doesn’t care enough to produce a theme themselves that isn’t shit.
Is it theoretically possible that a third party could come up with a decent face? Sure. It doesn’t seem worth Apple’s resources, though. I’d rather they just work on faces themselves.
Bad taste will find a way.
Dang it, I had fun using a couple of skins for Macamp.
It still blows my mind that people were proud enough of their work to upload those skins. I used to have a screenshot of a skinned motherboard firmware updater on my blog, and it was the very worst skin you can imagine without going into the (human) pornographic.
I had similar thoughts and came to similar conclusions. (Long story short; Disney would’ve been a great third-party watch face partner) I’ve since changed my whole thinking on the matter. Now all I want is to add a round photo to the Utility face. And maybe the option to disable the second hand.