Native Animations Not On-Board With watchOS 2

When watchOS 2 was announced earlier this week, one of the big reveals was its native video support. However, there was no word on a another glaring omission that we’ve all notice since Apple Watch launched, and this one’s a bigger deal to the interface and user experience than videos could ever be: animations.

Considering everything else, I’d assumed that developers would be given access to run animations natively on Apple Watch with the new software, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. With watchOS 2, coders are still forced to “fake” them in the form of GIFs (or whatever GIF-esque system — APNGs? — Apple has in place). 9to5Mac
clarifies things:

Although Apple is advertising native apps with watchOS 2, it isn’t as ‘native’ as some developers wanted or expected. The logic code now runs on the watch, but raw access to the user interface is still not allowed on watchOS 2.

This means frameworks like UIKit cannot be used to draw truly custom UI. Instead developers must rely on the same techniques employed with current WatchKit apps that revolve around image sequences to create more interesting effects.

By hacking Apple Watch, developer trio Steve Troughton-Smith, Saurik, and Adam Bell have apparently managed to do just that, as demonstrated in the video below. (Why these guys always seem to leak their triumphs in portrait mode instead of landscape mode is anyone’s guess. My guess is it’s an inside joke.)

In retrospect, it’s not surprising that Apple is piecemealing the wearable’s feature roll-out. They’ve always been very deliberate in peeling back only the tiniest layers here and there, giving developers something new (however small) to work with every quarter or half-year. In this way, it keeps the good coders coding meaningful updates, and it allows end users to experience these — and the requisite “delight” that comes with them — on a regular basis. It’s a strategy unlike those employed by other computing giants in the past, and I think it’s a big reason why Apple products enjoy such acclaim and attraction year after year. It keeps everyone coming back for more.

Sure, Apple could have native animations ready to go right now if they wanted to, but that’d be one less thing to hype up for the next big version release. It’s the same deal with Faces.

I can’t wait for watchOS 3.