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Developer hacks Apple Watch to support custom watch faces

Respected developer Hamza Sood, who earlier this month helped us discover hints at an upcoming more powerful iPad mini, today has shared his latest tweak: the ability to use custom watch faces on Apple Watch. Sood posted a video to Twitter, which can be seen below, showing two custom watch faces running on his stainless steel Apple Watch.

[tweet https://twitter.com/hamzasood/status/633752345856229376 align=’center’]

Sood has shared the source code that he used to create the custom watch faces to GitHub. For those curious, Sood’s Apple Watch is running the watchOS 2.0 beta. The developer was able to completely integrate his custom watch faces into watchOS, allowing them to be seamlessly chosen from the first-party interface. Sood’s tweak also takes advantage of the Digital Crown, allowing him to change the color of the watch face by moving the crown, similar to how many of Apple’s own watch faces work.

The lack of support for custom watch faces on Apple Watch has been one of the long running complaints regarding the device since its launch earlier this year. It’s unclear at this point if Apple has any plans to support such a feature down the line. watchOS 2 adds several new first-party watch faces, but still lacks support for faces developed by third-parties. Earlier this year, developers also hacked Apple Watch to run UIKit apps on watchOS 1.0. 

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Comments

  1. James Alexander - 9 years ago

    I want a Darth Vader watch face like Mickey Mouse.

  2. srgmac - 9 years ago

    Finally! I knew this was going to come from the dev community before it came from Apple, which is quite sad, as this feature should have been there from day one and is really a no brainer.

    • rogifan - 9 years ago

      Yeah and then people jailbreak their device and get crap battery life.

      • herewegoagain7 - 9 years ago

        You have no idea what you’re talking about. Don’t be stupid.

  3. Deepaksood (@Shakhu_) - 9 years ago

    Ohh the developer’s name is @” Hamza Sood” not “Hazma Sood” please make the correction

  4. bobyey - 9 years ago

    You can’t see the video or tweet on the main screen on mobile after you push expand full story. I had to click on comments to then load the actual story to see the video.

Author

Avatar for Chance Miller Chance Miller

Chance is the editor-in-chief of 9to5Mac, overseeing the entire site’s operations. He also hosts the 9to5Mac Daily and 9to5Mac Happy Hour podcasts.

You can send tips, questions, and typos to chance@9to5mac.com.

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