Developing iOS Apps for Wearables with watchOS & HealthKit

Wearables and fitness trackers have become part of the modern lifestyle, and people are more conscious of their health than ever before.

As small as the screen, designing the app is more complex. The market has surged in the past few years and will keep increasing. It is expected that by the 35% compound growth rate, the market will touch $41.3 billion. These wearables are accessible to all age groups, from teens to old age.   

Developing a wearable app for iOS will be a thrilling experience. The landscape is unique beyond your imagination and triumphs, concluding the key considerations to save you from unforeseen events.

Get assistance with designing, developing, performance optimization, testing, and additional cloud integration for data and resource management.

Understanding WatchOS App Development & HealthKit Integration for Wearables

WatchOS complies with the ecosystem's design and development standards. It enables the perfect tools and utilities to shape the interface for fitness trackers, health monitoring, and productivity management tools. The WatchOS suite has numerous built-in features for wearable apps. Developers can enable HealthKit for health data processing tracking, Siri for voice commands, ApplePay for payment integration, etc.

Get to Know the Problem's Intent and Audience

Before taking your first step on the development grounds, it would be better to know the problematic events. Thus, we can adapt the approach accordingly to tap the potential marketplace. It is for fitness or sports enthusiasts. What's the age group of the audience? Are they extremely fitness and health-conscious, or do they want to add something to their lifestyle accessories?

What's Intent to Build the App

Extending the previous point, it is easier to plan the features, design, and other usability elements after understanding the intent and audience. Create a user journey from one screen to the last. How will the user explore the app? How will each screen resemble real-life events, and how will each feature tackle them?

Refer to the Tech Resources

You're just one company initiating the wearable iOS app for your audience. Thus, search the web and your surroundings. Have a one-on-one discussion with them about whether they are facing health-related challenges and whether they need any digital solution to overcome them. Can you cater to the niches and audience with your app idea?

Assign the Project to the Right People

Not everyone is a jack of all trades. Thus, a team should be formed that is aware of every aspect of wearable and WatchOS app development. They must understand the essential tools and integrations to launch the app.

Brace yourself. It's time to step down the ground on wearables for Apple's fanbase—one that drives luxury, robustness, and performance. WatchOs is an essential companion on the ground, enabling access to launch excellent standalone apps. To smoothen the dev ride, glance at swift language concepts, Glance API, and a dedicated visual editor. All three are essential to designing and developing watch interfaces.

Interface Design for the Watch App

This phase needs extra attention to make things readable and appealing at first glance. Use a color palette or style size for buttons and fonts. Choose the icons and elements wisely with appropriate counts to make the interface look clean and breathable. Design a separate prototype to explain how things look in dark and light modes.

HealthKit Integration for Seamless Data Processing

Leverage the power of HealthKit to your wearable health app, which can read, write, and store essential information. It's a robust framework with WatchConnectivity API and requires essential user permission for app usage. It extends the data transmission capabilities for complicated computations. It enables users to track their health and fitness progress.

Testing for Wearables

Are you done with the functionality and layout styling?  Now it's time to consider whether it's fit for the launch or needs any improvement.  Quality Analysts use all their tools and resources to optimize the app's performance and quality. Apple Watch simulators enable the testing environment to check if the app functions well in all desirable circumstances with smooth rendering. Or it throws any exceptions related to touch gestures, battery, or other platform-specific complications.

Taking the approval from WatchOs Apple Store

You can only release the app to the public if it complies with app store guidelines. Confirm all the things you have done appropriately, including the human interface and HealthKit. The guidelines for iPhone and wearable devices may be slightly different. Thus, go through the watchOS approval metrics to make your app launch successful.

Key consideration:

If the app prioritizes user privacy while accessing location data, health and fitness activity data, voice recognition, etc., and if the app complies with Apple Pay guidelines.

• Automatic Background App Refresh Permission
• Bluetooth and other paired device permission
• Do users know where the data is collected for what?

Keep an Ear on User Response

Till now, the app was used by a few users, and it was fine-tuned. Now, when the traffic increases and more users explore the app interfaces, it may behave unpredictably. Plan the updates to resolve the tech glitches with some advanced integration. Thus, the app can manage the data transfer and computational tasks seamlessly. Professional Apple developers, they keep the focus on discovering the bugs in the watchOS environment. Proactively tackle the tech complications encountered in watchOS app development.

Final Words:

Wearables make life comfortable yet involve a lot of groundwork and backstage drama. Designing exclusive experiences for such small screens requires a sophisticated strategy. Integrating HealthKit enables access to sensitive health data through their wrist companion briefly with minimum taps and swipes.

Developers need to know the root problems and make the experience perfectly navigated through fingers smoothly. The future is filled with ample opportunities, and the development team will launch smooth wearable interfaces adapting to the latest trends.

FAQs:

What is the difference between WearOS and WatchOs?

WearOS and WatchOS are development environments for designing wearable apps. However, WearOS complies with Google guidelines and is suitable for Android devices' wearable apps. WatchOS enables the development capabilities to connect with the iPhone's unique interactions.

What are the critical UI/ UX design considerations to remember during wearable app development?

While designing the app for tiny wearable screens, make sure the visuals are minimal and straightforward. The text should be clear and readable in light and night mode. All the interactions and gestures can be rendered with a few swipes.

How do you know if the wearable app is ready to launch?

Set up the Apple emulators with Xcode to test th app for real-time scenarios. Discover the problematic interactions, battery usage, and other performance glitches. Avoid the flashy visuals and lengthy code, and remove the unnecessary features to make the rendering smooth and optimize the app.