Developing for watchOS 2
With the new features and capabilities that watchOS 2 brings to WatchKit, your apps can integrate even more closely with Apple Watch. Take advantage of the Digital Crown, microphone, Taptic engine, and health sensors to take your Apple Watch app to the next level. And with ClockKit, you can extend your app to the clock face with Complications.
WatchKit for watchOS 2
Take advantage of all new features, such as programmatic access to the Digital Crown for simpler item selection and animation APIs for fluid and more dynamic user interfaces. Employ new ways to play audio and video, and use the microphone to record audio directly from Apple Watch. With access to the Taptic engine, you can add haptic feedback in your Apple Watch apps. watchOS 2 also includes many enhancements to other existing frameworks such as HealthKit, enabling access to the health sensors that access heart rate and health information in real-time. CoreMotion enhancements include the ability to use the accelerometer to create engaging experiences on Apple Watch.
ClockKit
This new framework enables apps to provide up-to-date and meaningful information that updates throughout the day directly on the clock face with Complications. And with the new Time Travel feature in watchOS 2, users can turn the Digital Crown to go backward and forward in time to display information in Complications from that time. Users can even enable multiple versions of your app's Complications on the same clock face to display a variety of information.
WatchConnectivity
Now you can take advantage of robust device-to-device communication between the WatchKit extension on Apple Watch and the containing app on iPhone. WatchConnectivity enables Apple Watch to communicate with iPhone in new and more efficient ways. WatchConnectivity saves battery life by allowing the WatchKit extension to transfer new information for the iPhone app to use when it’s next launched, allowing for seamless file transfers between the Apple Watch app and iPhone app. Using NSURLSession, Apple Watch can now communicate directly with known wifi hotspots using the new Tetherless Wi-Fi feature in watchOS 2.
watchOS 2 SDK
Download the latest versions of Xcode and iOS to build apps with the watchOS SDK.
Documentation
Find a comprehensive set of guides, reference, and sample code for watchOS.
Developer Forums
Ask questions and discuss with Apple engineers and other developers.