Well-known developers Steve Troughton-Smith, Saurik and Adam Bell have managed to hack the Apple Watch on watchOS 2 to run truly native apps on the device. 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.
In the demo, video embedded below, the team managed to get a fully interactive 3D object running on the Apple Watch powered by Apple’s SceneKit framework.
https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/609262287212425216
Scene Kit is just used as an example here — any UI framework available to developers on iPhone and iPad would be accessible.
Jailbreak hacker Comex has previously achieved something similar on the original Watch OS although it did not seem as fully fleshed. The trio say they will release technical information on how this was achieved in the future once watchOS 2 ships.
watchOS 2 is due to be released in the fall and requires paired iPhones to update to iOS 9.
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Battery life, battery life, battery life.
Multiple display sizes and shapes, visual consistency and one theme to rule them all!
Now, does this mean I could theoretically write an native Apple Watch app and then upload it from a Macbook – without an iPhone?
Yeah, I know, how many other potential Watch customers are going to have a Macbook but NOT an iPhone?
Wow, that’s loading quite fast in the video demo — is that because it’s a native app?
Really looking forward to this jailbreak and native apps in the App Store as well, although it’s my understanding that custom watch faces are still not allowed…this is pretty sad IMHO :| Sad day for me and anyone else who wants to create a custom watch face. The picture thing is neat but it’s still not fully custom watch faces. Kind of off topic — but isn’t it strange how the 3rd gen ATV still to this day has yet to be JB’d, and probably never will be, and the Apple Watch gets hax0red only after a few weeks? I don’t know about anyone else, but when it comes to security, especially with a device that can make mobile payments and possesses NFC technology, I’m much more concerned about the security of _that_ device, compared to a set-top box…
Great but what’s the use? Wish to see more useful hacks than “just because I can” ones.
i wish someone would hack the watch app to run on ipod