Book Image

Apple Watch App Development

By : Steven F. Daniel
Book Image

Apple Watch App Development

By: Steven F. Daniel

Overview of this book

With the increasing amount of new wearable devices hitting the market, wearables are the next wave of mobile technology. With the release of Apple's WatchKit SDK, a whole new world of exciting development possibilities hasopened up. Apple Watch App Development introduces you to the architecture and limitations of the Apple Watch platform, followed by an in-depth look at how to work with Xcode playgrounds. Here, we'll introduce you to the Swift programming language so you can quickly begin developing apps for the Apple Watch platform with the WatchKit framework and the Xcode Development IDE. We then discuss more advanced topics such as Notifiations, Glances, Closures, Tuples, Protocols, Apple pay, and using Swift playgrounds, with each concept backed up with example code that demonstrates how to properly execute it. We also show you how to package and deploy your Watch application to the Apple AppStore. By the end of this book, you will have a good understanding of how to develop apps for Apple Watch platform using the WatchKit framework and Swift 2.0.

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Apple Watch App Development
Steven F. Daniel
Apr, 2016 | 358 pages
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Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Apple Watch App Development
Apple Watch App Development
Credits
Credits
About the Author
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
About the Reviewer
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Introducing the Swift Programming Language
Introducing the Swift Programming Language
Registering as an Apple developer
Getting and installing Xcode development tools
Introduction to Xcode playgrounds
Introduction to the Swift language
What's new in Swift 2.0
Summary
2
Understanding Apple Watch
Understanding Apple Watch
Introduction to the WatchKit platform
Apple Watch Human Interface Guidelines
What's new in watchOS 2
Summary
3
Exploring WatchKit Controls
Exploring WatchKit Controls
Building the Guessing Game application
Summary
4
Using the Core Location and Watch Connectivity Frameworks
Using the Core Location and Watch Connectivity Frameworks
Creating the navigation tracking application
Summary
5
Navigating Around in WatchKit
Navigating Around in WatchKit
Building the Health Monitor application
Building and running the Health Monitor application
Summary
6
Implementing Tables within Your App
Implementing Tables within Your App
Building the Shopping List application
Building and running the Shopping List application
Summary
7
Adding Menus to Your App
Adding Menus to Your App
Introduction to gestures and the menu interface
Design considerations for WatchKit context menu icons
Adding a menu to our Shopping List application – WatchKit
Establishing the WatchKit context menu connections
Design considerations when using Taptic Engine
Summary
8
Incorporating the Glance Interface in Your App
Incorporating the Glance Interface in Your App
Introduction to working with WatchKit glances
Adding a glance to our Shopping List application – WatchKit
Configuring our glance controller using templates
Establishing glance interface controller connections
Storing information to show within your glance controller
Displaying information within your glance controller
Understanding the glance interface guidelines
Running the Shopping List application – WatchKit
Summary
9
Incorporating Notifications within Your App
Incorporating Notifications within Your App
Working with WatchKit notifications
Configuring the notification scheme for our Shopping List app
Adding Action buttons to your dynamic notifications
Establishing our notification controller connections
Configuring a category for our static interface controller
Scheduling notifications with your notification controller
Displaying messages within the notification interface
Understanding the notification interface guidelines
Running the Shopping List application – WatchKit
Summary
10
Image Compression and Animation
Image Compression and Animation
Building the animation application – WatchKit
Summary
11
Packaging and Deploying Your App
Packaging and Deploying Your App
Creating and setting up your iOS development team
Creating the iOS development certificate
Obtaining the development certificate from Apple
Creating App IDs for your WatchKit applications
Creating development provisioning profiles
Profiling your application using Xcode Instruments
Preparing your app for submission using iTunes Connect
Submitting an app to iTunes Connect using Xcode
Summary
Index
Index

Getting and installing Xcode development tools

In this section, we will take a look at what Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) and Software Development Kits (SDKs) are needed to develop applications for the iOS platform, which is Apple's operating system for mobile devices. We will explain the importance of each tool's role in the development cycle and the tools required to develop applications for the iOS platform, which are as follows:

  • An Intel-based Mac computer running OS X Yosemite (10.10.2) or later with the latest point release and security patches installed is required. This is so that you can install the latest version of the Xcode development tool.

  • Xcode 6.4 or later is required. Xcode is the main development tool for iOS. You need Xcode 6.4 minimum as this version includes Swift 1.2, and you must be registered as an Apple developer. The iOS SDK consists of the following components:

    Component

    Description

    Xcode

    This is the main IDE that enables you to develop, edit, and debug your native applications for the iOS and Mac platforms using the Objective-C or Swift programming languages.

    iOS Simulator

    This is a Cocoa-based application that enables you to debug your iOS applications on your computer without the need of having an iOS device. There are many iOS features that simply won't work within Simulator, so a device is required if an application uses features such as the Core Location and MapKit frameworks.

    Instruments

    These are the analysis tools that help you optimize your applications and monitor memory leaks during the execution of your application in real time.

    Dashcode

    This enables you to develop web-based iOS applications and dashboard widgets.

Once you are registered, you will need to download and install Xcode developer tools by performing the following steps:

  1. Begin by downloading and installing Xcode from Mac App Store at https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/xcode/id497799835?mt=12.

  2. Select either the Free or Install button on the App Store page. Once it completes the installation process, you will be able to launch Xcode.app from your Applications folder.

    Note

    You can find additional development tools from the Apple developer website at https://developer.apple.com/.

In the next section, we will be looking at what, exactly, Xcode playgrounds are and how you can use them to experiment with designing code algorithms prior to incorporating the code into your project. So, let's get started.

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