Just got this today.
I don’t send a ton of messages from my watch, but it’s definitely handy. Any thoughts on why they’d yank this?
I think you answered your own question … “I don’t send a ton of messages from my watch”
If people aren’t using it to send, there’s no data to mine, so it’s a financial drain to keep it going.
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You may be right. But on the other hand, they said they’re keeping the notifications support, which offers zero data to mine guaranteed. So by your logic, why would they keep support for the portion that offers them nothing while killing off the portion that benefits them at least a little?
Notifications are free and require no work — they originate from Messenger on the iPhone.
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Facebook has continued to regularly get terrible press regarding privacy and security. Here’s just one example.:
But Facebook is not totally stopping location tracking and their use of it:
“What if you don’t let us collect certain information?
Some information is required for our Products to work. Other information is optional, but without it, the quality of your experience might be affected.”
IMHO, it still sounds kind of stalkerish.
Less work, not no work:
And the iPhone app does the heavy lifting for both features, not just notifications.
As for development effort, they already had it working, and it wouldn’t have taken much to keep it working, esp. for a company the size of FB. A single part-time developer could have done the job, and the ROI for even occasional use of the feature, with their scale, would have been a no-brainer.
There must be another reason. I wonder if they’re trying to make Apple Watch a second class citizen to a wearable that they sell or partner with…?
But it’s the same amount of work as providing notifications for the iPhone. watchOS just gets the broadcast of the notifications.
Clearly Meta and Apple do not always get along, and there are reports that Meta is about to release a WearOS version of WhatsApp. That said, Meta is not alone in dropping app development for watchOS. Uber, Slack, Google apps (all but Keep) - all gone.
A good article about this from last year: Apple Watch apps: Their abandonment is no surprise, nor worry - 9to5Mac
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This could be one of the biggest understatements of the year.
Uber and other companies have both apps and widgets:
Doesn’t mention Apple Watch, though?
Jeez…I didn’t know about this:
But there’s excellent PR for upcoming Watch widgets development via Bloomberg here:
Apple to Upgrade Its Watch Operating System With New Focus on Widgets
“ But now Apple is trying something different. As part of watchOS 10, the company is planning to bring back widgets and make them a central part of the interface. This new strategy will debut at WWDC in June, alongside the unveiling of iOS 17, macOS 14, the 15-inch MacBook Air, and, of course, the much-anticipated mixed-reality headset.
Thanks for the input!
Neither link really says why devs are ditching the watch, except to speculate it’s due to low usage.
But anyway, what are widgets and glances on Apple Watch? I know about apps and complications. I’ve had a watch for several years, and other than those and notifications and control center items, I know of nothing else on the watch.
Glances were with the original watch and dropped when the Series 1 and 2 were released.
See How to add and remove Glances on Apple Watch | Macworld
Widgets are not a thing on Apple Watch but there’s a rumor that they are coming with watchOS 10. I assume they will be similar to iPhone widgets and different from the current complications b
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I’m constantly amazed at the amount of resources that are needed for modern application development at large companies. The bank I use has dropped its iPad app, and now only has an iPhone app which does a lot less. I assume it was simply that not enough people used the iPad app, and the need to look after the app plus the interface to their systems and the security they decided it was easier not to have it.
There’s usually big differences between business to business and business to consumer development, as well as internal development for desktop as well as mobil stuff. Add in customizing off the shelf software, and companies that need to develop for multiple operating systems. The scenario continues to get curiouser and curiouser.
Citibank did the same thing (dropped iPad support but kept iPhone app). I always thought it was because the iPad is large enough to support the normal Citibank online via Safari. While I use the iPhone app daily, I use the iPad/laptop version fairly often because there are features that haven’t made it into the app.
Yes, I think that may be the justification, and I can still use the iPhone app on my iPad and use the web version if needed. This is an Australian bank with a valuation of $US100 billion, so they aren’t sort of money. I have wondered about some of their IT since I started exporting my statements so I can track my spending using an R program I wrote. The interface for exporting my account is reasonably different from the credit card, presumably because it is two different teams.