It looks like there won't be third-party watch faces anytime soon

[doogald]

In an interview with a Swiss newspaper, Apple executives who work on watchOS,Kevin Lynch and Deidre Caldbeck, basically said that there will not be official third-party watch face support in watchOS anytime soon.

Asked about the possibility of third-party watch faces on Apple Watch, Lynch says that the watch face is the home screen of the watch and they want everything to work reliably and consistently.

As Apple controls all the faces the user can choose, Caldbeck adds that users “don’t have to worry about the watch face still working when there’s a major watchOS update. We’ll take care of that.”

If third-party faces were available, Apple argues it wouldn’t be able to ensure that the watch faces keep working if they change something in the operating system, like this year’s watchOS 10 redesign that includes a new swipe up gesture to reveal a tray of user-selectable widgets.

9to5Mac has a summary of the article here: https://9to5mac.com/2023/06/19/interview-watchos-10-third-party-apple-watch-faces/

This actually seems like a good argument to me, though I suppose it's also possible to design a watch face API that requires a minimum API version and ignores a watch face made with an older version should Apple improve an API in a way that prevents older watch faces from working.

 

[Ledsteplin]

I have seen people using non Apple Watch faces. How well they work with updated WatchOSs I don't know. But they are available for a price.

 

[doogald]

Right, I'm not talking about apps that put pseudo-watchfaces on the screen, but instead the idea that third parties could create watch faces that appear in the watch face gallery.

 

[Ledsteplin]

It would be nice if Apple would add more nice looking faces. Too many they offer are just useless or ugly.

 

[Just_Me_D]

Because the numerous watch faces are hideous to me, I use the same 3 or 4 year round. Apple needs to do a better job with providing attractive and professional looking watch faces.

 

[nikkisharif]

Because the numerous watch faces are hideous to me, I use the same 3 or 4 year round. Apple needs to do a better job with providing attractive and professional looking watch faces.

Agreed!!! This is one of the reasons I went with Apple Watch Hermès. I love a classy watch face & needed more variety.

 

[tcuprof]

I only use three watch faces, and Activity Digital at least 90% of the time. I don't care if we get third-party faces, but it would be nice to have more faces with digital seconds.