Revision History, Release Notes & Roadmap

This post has details about past, current and future revisions of Watch Kit Pro.

Revision History, Release Notes & Roadmap

Release Notes

The current revision of Watch Kit Pro is version 9.0. We shipped it! Download it to your Wear OS smartwatch today. If you've already installed it, updates may take a few days; we roll them out slowly to watch for defects.

Revision History

  • 2024-02-12: v9.0: Improve display of color gradients; restructure the Configuration screens
  • 2023-10-18: v8.3: Improve display of complications
  • 2023-09-18: v8.2: Fix missing watch face background and pips
  • 2023-08-29: v8.1a: Fix configuration in Wear OS 3.0
  • 2022-07-30: v8.0a: Simplify wording; increase contrast in textures; user interface updates
  • 2022-07-11: v7.1: Fixed crashes and graphical glitches in configuration activity
  • 2022-06-27: v7.0a: Added Gallery of interesting watch faces and new colorways
  • 2022-05-13: v6.0b: Improved layout in configuration activity
  • 2022-01-29: v5.0: [EXPERIMENTAL] Show second hand in ambient mode (for compatible devices)
  • 2022-01-29: v5.0: Rename "palette" to "colorway"
  • 2021-09-06: v4.0b: Add colour palettes and variants, for more colorful watch faces!
  • 2021-04-06: v3.0: Tweak colours in palette; generate more accurate gradients
  • 2021-04-06: v3.0: Add "crosshatch" and "sparkle" material effects
  • 2021-04-06: v3.0: "Ticks" renamed to "pips"
  • 2021-01-14: v2.0: Add in-app documentation
  • 2020-08-18: v1.0: In ambient mode, draw digits and seconds ticks with a faded colour
  • 2020-02-26: v0.4: Improved contrast with more light and shadow in bezels
  • 2020-02-26: v0.4: Rotary input (rotating crown) now works in Wear OS System H
  • 2020-02-26: v0.4: "Styles" renamed to "Materials"
  • 2019-11-03: v0.3a: Visual history of watch face presets; if you make changes, you can go back to prior versions.
  • 2019-10-26: v0.2a: Improved user interface for requesting location permissions.
  • 2019-10-23: v0.1: Remove some debugging code before our first public release.
  • 2019-10-15: v0.0: The first internal testing release to the Google Play Store.

An exhaustive list of changes is available on the GitHub commit log.

Roadmap

The below roadmap is a list of features which we intend to add to Watch Kit Pro.

Our intentions may be good but they're not immutable! We reserve the right to do the below, or not do them, or do them early, or late, or some time in the distant future. We reserve the right to do other things too!

We're happy to take suggestions. File them at our GitHub page.

Near Term

  • Naming and saving presets
  • More testing and tweaking to suit various shapes and sizes of Wear OS wearables!

Medium Term

  • Re-design the styles screen to visualise how the elements of styles (colors, gradients and textures) combine to produce a style
  • Random watch face preset generator

Long Term

  • Viewing watch face presets on this web site, and be able to configure them there
  • Sharing watch face presets with other users (depends on: viewing watch face presets on this web site)
  • More complication styles, including ones with dials and hands, or text complications that wrap around the edge of the watch face
  • Elongated complications that can fit more detailed information
  • Background complications or custom backgrounds
  • More slots for watch faces, if there's demand for it

Miscellaneous or Ongoing Tasks

  • Defect fixes, code cleanup and optimisation; keep it running smoothly!
  • Graphics improvements
  • More built-in presets
  • More texture and gradient types for styles
  • User interface clean-ups
  • More documentation
  • Complications for the sun and moon phase, rise and set, etc.
  • A wider array of scripture verses!

Things we are Not Planning on Doing, Unless There's a Heap of Demand

  • A companion Android smartphone app; our goal is everything configurable on the watch (and also support iOS users)
  • Support for Wear OS 1.x