Latest watchOS beta warns users when opening watchOS 1 apps, says support will end soon

I really hope this gets developers updating their apps.

Some of the apps are really cool but sluggish because they don't run natively... at least that's what appears to be the case. Does anyone know if Swipes, ToDoist, and many of the other get things done apps are native or only WatchOS 1 because these all have many issues that seem to suggest they are not native. Swipes seems to be the worst with only showing a handful of the tasks I put into it and it takes forever to sync but it's such a cool app.

The watch is supposed to be about quick interactions, but third party apps are anything but quick. I remember the old WatchOS 1 apps being a bit sluggish, but they usually loaded more quickly than wOS2+ ones.

lowededwookie said:

I really hope this gets developers updating their apps.

Some of the apps are really cool but sluggish because they don't run natively... at least that's what appears to be the case. 

Native ones seem to be ok when they're running, but they only open half the time, the rest of the time they're just sat with the (newly updated! Priorities, Apple) spinning loading indicator. It has to be an Apple thing, since pretty much all third party apps do it, though occasionally one will open in a few seconds. They're so unreliable I don't bother using them anymore, and unfortunately from what I've seen most people are the same. So it's no wonder third parties are abandoning the platform if no one uses the apps. There are a lot of pointless apps which are a poor copy of the phone app, but there are some really useful ones. Calcbot being a good example, and Pillow too.

GeorgeBMac said:

I am hopeful that this will free things up to enable more 3rd parties to develop quality apps that run natively on the Apple Watch.

Apple Watch has the hardware to run exceptional exercise trackers.  Yet few high end 3rd party exercise apps run natively on the watch.  The reason has been speculated to have been an 'unfriendly' environment for developers.  Hopefully, this will help to correct that situation and open up the platform for further development by 3rd parties.

Not sure how this will free things up? It's not getting in the way of devs making decent third party apps. Apple's API restrictions and battery-life vs usability is. It seems the third party exercise apps suffer the same problem as the non-exercise ones. Slow.

I bought a Series 3 Apple Watch in January. The Watch app store looks exactly the same as it did 3 months ago; same apps, same sections, no changes. I realize that there are relatively few use cases for a watch app vs. an iPhone or iPad app. (I don't plan on running Excel on it, for example). It is a little disconcerting that the major developers seem to be abandoning the platform and there doen't seem to be much activity in the app store.

If this is the same as the 32 to 64 bit migration like others have indicated, a lot of the apps will probably just go away and never come back.

elijahg said:

The watch is supposed to be about quick interactions, but third party apps are anything but quick. I remember the old WatchOS 1 apps being a bit sluggish, but they usually loaded more quickly than wOS2+ ones.

lowededwookie said:

I really hope this gets developers updating their apps.

Some of the apps are really cool but sluggish because they don't run natively... at least that's what appears to be the case. 

Native ones seem to be ok when they're running, but they only open half the time, the rest of the time they're just sat with the (newly updated! Priorities, Apple) spinning loading indicator. It has to be an Apple thing, since pretty much all third party apps do it, though occasionally one will open in a few seconds. They're so unreliable I don't bother using them anymore, and unfortunately from what I've seen most people are the same. So it's no wonder third parties are abandoning the platform if no one uses the apps. There are a lot of pointless apps which are a poor copy of the phone app, but there are some really useful ones. Calcbot being a good example, and Pillow too.

GeorgeBMac said:

I am hopeful that this will free things up to enable more 3rd parties to develop quality apps that run natively on the Apple Watch.

Apple Watch has the hardware to run exceptional exercise trackers.  Yet few high end 3rd party exercise apps run natively on the watch.  The reason has been speculated to have been an 'unfriendly' environment for developers.  Hopefully, this will help to correct that situation and open up the platform for further development by 3rd parties.

Not sure how this will free things up? It's not getting in the way of devs making decent third party apps. Apple's API restrictions and battery-life vs usability is. It seems the third party exercise apps suffer the same problem as the non-exercise ones. Slow.

There was a comment on a piece a month so ago from a developer who stated that it was compatibility with the Gen0 watches that was making 3rd party development for the watch restrictive and burdonsome.  Assuming that he was right, this may be Apple clearing the field for 3rd party developers -- which is very much needed.   From the standpoint of serious exercise, the Apple Watch is a great piece of hardware with lots of potential that has not been fully developed to its potential.