Swift Development for the Apple Watch

Chapter 5. Complications

With all of the other features built into the Apple Watch, it’s easy to forget that it’s a wristwatch at heart. Out of all of the other screens that are present in the watch, the one that will be viewed the most is the watch face: that screen that shows the time.

However, good watches do more than just show the time. They show the date, the weather, a stopwatch, and more (see Figure 5-1). These little gadgets on the clockfaces are called complications, so named because their original implementation in clockwork-based watches dramatically complicated the internals of the watch.

Figure 5-1. Several complications on the watch face (except for the watch dial and hands, everything in this image is a complication)

On the Apple Watch, the user can select a variety of different watch faces, and some faces can include complications. These complications include things like the date, the next event on the calendar, and so on; you can see an example of several complications in Figure 5-1. Your watchOS applications can provide complications as well, and in this chapter, we’ll look at how to create them.

Designing a Complication

Before we set out to build a complication, it’s worth taking a moment to discuss what a complication is for. Because they’re shown on the watch face, a complication’s role is focused on time. A complication needs to present some ...