AppleInsider Staff
In a post to Twitter on Tuesday, developer Hamza Sood revealed an Apple Watch hack that bypasses Apple's restriction against installing third-party watch faces on the device.
Sood, who is well known for digging into Apple code, said he was able to roll his own watch face source code, complete with customizable color schemes, up and running on his Apple Watch after some "haxx."
The result, seen below, is a custom animated watch face playing the "Onoz Omg" meme against a psychedelic flashing background. Sood is able to change the background's two primary colors using Apple's watch face customization user interface, activated by a force press.
After some haxx... Custom watch faces on Apple Watch!
Watch face source code is on GitHub:
https://t.co/7ZvOz8nK34 pic.twitter.com/nQGJKlp6kt
— Hamza Sood (@hamzasood) August 18, 2015Sood posted the custom watch face source code on GitHub and works with Apple Watch units running watchOS 2.
Apple is expected to launch watchOS 2 this fall with a slew of new features including support for native third-party apps and complications, a nightstand mode, enhanced Siri functionality and Activation Lock, among others. Custom watch face support is not on the list.
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43 Comments
A flawless presentation of why Apple doesn't support this functionality in the first place.
Very cool !! I want that watch face. !!! OMG !!!!
[quote name="Dunks" url="/t/187772/developer-hacks-custom-watch-face-onto-apple-watch#post_2763126"]A flawless presentation of why Apple doesn't support this functionality in the first place.[/quote] Yeah I can only imagine the crap that would be developed is Apple opened this up. The worst are the skeuomorphic analog watch faces for Android Wear that have faux shadows/lighting. [img]http://assets.facerepo.com/app/image/preview/diver-300m-co-axial-chronograph-14f42310a7c.png?v=14f42364164[/img]
I remember when the first Intel Macs came out and it was suspected that Windows could be made to run. Hackers came up with crude ways of doing it all the while lambasting Apple about it. There was even a startup or two that started offering packages to install Windows. And then Boot Camp came out.
No doubt Apple will allow this someday when the time is right and they can control it. It’s their hardware and their software and they have a reputation to protect.
Apple will eventually open this up more, but I can't blame them for not wanting the first Apple watches to be shown using hideous watch faces.