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.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Apple Watch App Development
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgements
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Registering as an Apple developer


Before you can begin building iOS applications for your iOS devices, you must first join as a registered user of Apple Developer Program in order to download all of the necessary components to your computer. The registration process is free and provides you with access to the iOS SDK and other developer resources that are really useful to get you started.

The following short list outlines some of the things that you will be able to access once you become a registered member of Apple Developer Program:

  • It provides helpful "Getting Started" guides to help you get up and running quickly

  • It gives you helpful tips that show you how to submit your apps to App Store

  • It provides the ability to download the current releases of iOS software

  • It provides the ability to beta test the releases of iOS and the iOS SDK

  • It provides access to Apple Developer Forums

    Note

    Whether you develop applications for the iPhone or iPad, these use the same OS and iOS SDK that allows you to create universal apps that will work with each of these devices. On the other hand, Apple Watch uses an entirely different OS called watchOS.

To prepare your computer for iOS development, you need to register as an Apple developer. This free process gives you access to the basic levels of development that allow you to test your app using iOS Simulator without the ability to sell your app on the Apple App Store. The steps are as follows:

  1. To sign up to Apple Developer Program, you will need to go to https://developer.apple.com/programs/ and then click on the Enroll button to proceed, as shown in the following screenshot:

  2. Next, click on the Start Your Enrollment button, as shown in the following screenshot:

  3. Once you sign up, you will then be able to download the iOS SDK and proceed with installing it onto your computer.

You will then become an official member of Apple Developer Program. You will then be able to download beta software so that you can test them on your actual device hardware as well as having the freedom to distribute your apps to your end users.

In the next section, we will look at how to download and install Xcode development tools.