I just got back from a 3 day, 61 mile hiking trip in the Scottish Highlands testing the Watch Ultra. Overall I was very impressed. It retains what makes the regular Apple Watch so good, while pushing out the edges of what it can handle.

Review/Video: david-smith.org/blog/2022/09/2…

The best place right now to follow what I’m working on and what I’m learning is my blog (david-smith.org) where I’m writing a daily diary of my design and development process (just posted my 7th entry).

I’m also now on Mastodon, just in case. mastodon.social/@_Davidsmith

Design Notes diary #6
david-smith.org/blog/2022/12/0…

Better graph scrolling, adding colored confetti in SwiftUI and an unexpected difference between iOS 16.1 and 16.2.

Design Notes Diary #5
david-smith.org/blog/2022/12/0…

My process for capturing issues with my apps in development and designing a better system for scaling my step count graphs.

Design Notes Diary #4

david-smith.org/blog/2022/12/0…

Doing some design work on my Live Activities…and pondering the question.

To Notch or not To Notch.

Design Notes Diary #1
david-smith.org/blog/2022/11/3…

More experiments with the Workout Screen.

Design Notes Diary #1
david-smith.org/blog/2022/11/2…

I’m trying a new approach to sharing my development process in a way that takes more ownership of the content, lessens my dependence on Twitter and hopefully increases the depth of the insight. A daily design/development diary.

Joking, not joking. My philosophy for navigating the delicious Thanksgiving/Christmas season comes from this clip of the Whoop podcast.

I’m not overeating. I’m “putting my body into a great state for building muscle”. Turning pumpkin pie into 💪🏻.

🤣

overcast.fm/+PsPA5HivE

The only little block of code I’m especially proud of writing was this little hack to prevent the badge on Pedometer++ from getting truncated. I worked out that if there were at least two “1”s digits in the number it was narrow enough to fully display.

david-smith.org/blog/2017/07/0…

It looks like the Apple Watch Ultra is selling very well. Essentially keeping pace with the 45mm Series 8, and actually outselling the 41mm amongst Pedometer++ users.

[For context the most used model right now is 44mm Series 6 at 11%, followed by 38mm Series 3 at 10%]

I had the idea for a “futuristic” analog watch face. Something that would look at home on a star ship’s navigational display. The red is hours, blue is minutes, yellow is seconds.

If you are curious what building something like this looks like, here is a 50x sped up recording of the 47 minutes it took to create.

Reading about the FTX collapse, and I just can’t get this line from Henry IV out of my mind:

“…commit the oldest sins in the newest kind of ways…”

Henry IV Part 2, ACT IV, Scene V.

Is there a more productive way to spend my morning than digging out my old high school physics equations to build a SwiftUI rain drop simulator so that the droplets can accurately bounce off the clock hands? Almost Certainly.

Is there a more fun way to spend my morning? Nope! 😁

And as is so often the case with explorations like this, some of the “failures” actually end up being super interesting and fun. One of them ended up turning the rain drops into bubbles that popped when they hit the hands.

Now that the new Apple Weather app is on the Mac, iPad and Lock Screen, why not bring it to the Apple Watch? I think its graphical approach of showing the conditions with animated backgrounds would make for a delightful watch face.

& of course I had to try and prototype it 😇

Those videos were made by adapting the truly excellent tutorial @twostraws did on Hacking with Swift+. If you aren’t a subscriber, then I can’t commend it to you highly enough. I’ve learned like 70% of my practical, foundational SwiftUI knowledge from him hackingwithswift.com/plus/remaking-…

You know I just realized that the Studio Display & XDR have automatic rotation detection, so Apple could probably include a little utility for leveling your monitor. A virtual bubble level that pops up when it detects you are rotating it back and forth.

Whenever I share my ideas/builds of watch faces, I’m asked where you can get them. Sadly the App Review Guidelines specifically forbid shipping anything that vaguely approximates a watch face.

Which since they can’t be installed as actual faces is really quite reasonable[cont]

So why do I share them, you ask? Well, it is the one small thing I can do to sustain interest in the idea and hopefully gently nudge Apple towards one day being adding them as a fully supported 3rd Party opportunity.

And when/if that day comes, boy will I be ready.

I just realized this Topographic watch face actually looks way better if I use the “Legible Digit” option of San Francisco. Gives it a much more outdoorsy look.

(This image is if you were standing on the top of Scafell Pike, the tallest mountain in England)