SAN FRANCISCO—All of the Apple Watch's third-party applications so far have had to use WatchKit, a limited SDK that limits apps' functionality and UI and restricts them from using all the watch's underlying hardware. At its WWDC keynote today, Apple announced that it would be moving beyond WatchKit and giving its third-party developers a more capable, native SDK that can take advantage of more of the Apple Watch's features.
With watchOS 2 and the native SDK, third-party apps will be able to do more of the things that Apple's first-party apps can do, as well as heretofore difficult-or-impossible-to-execute apps like games. Developers will be able to write their own complications. The native SDK gives developers access to the Digital Crown, the heart rate sensor, and other hardware, all things that the mostly-static, phone-reliant WatchKit apps can't access. Fitness apps on the watch will be able to integrate with OS's native fitness tracking.
As Apple had previously discussed, the native SDK will roll out in two stages. Developers will get access to a preview version next week so they can begin developing and testing their native apps. A full version (and, along with it, native third-party Apple Watch apps in the App Store) will follow in the fall—we'd expect a release date that coincides with iOS 9.
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