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rick snagwell

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Feb 12, 2011
3,749
101
alta loma, ca
hey everyone, i have an idea to make an ios8 app that would extend to the watch for main use. would help in my profession.

is xcode easy to learn for a basic app?

can someone point me in the right direction to start tinkering around?
 

TouchMint.com

macrumors 68000
May 25, 2012
1,625
318
Phoenix
Apple has made it as confusing as possible to get anything but the most basic things working on the watch. I've been making iPhone / iPad apps for about 3-4 years and attempting to make things for this watch is a pretty confusing process.
 

DannyBres

macrumors 65816
Oct 30, 2007
1,412
6
UK
Apple has made it as confusing as possible to get anything but the most basic things working on the watch. I've been making iPhone / iPad apps for about 3-4 years and attempting to make things for this watch is a pretty confusing process.

Really? :/

I read the Watch HIG and watch about 10 videos on YouTube and that was it, I am proficient at making watch apps and had a nice one in the store on day one.

It is super limited and simple, there is very little to go wrong with.

What you struggling with?

----------

hey everyone, i have an idea to make an ios8 app that would extend to the watch for main use. would help in my profession.

is xcode easy to learn for a basic app?

can someone point me in the right direction to start tinkering around?

It is pretty hard, been playing with xCode as a hobby for 4 years, released my first proper app last month.

If you're serious abiout it and do not know any languages, (as I was) read Objective-C and iOS programming by the Big Nerd Ranch then you'll have a good understanding of the language and know how to use the Developer Documentation to make use of the provided the Cocoa Touch objects in your own apps.

Can you describe the complexity of the app? (not the idea) Just is it: a game? A local list of things? a socal network with a web backend? etc?
 

TouchMint.com

macrumors 68000
May 25, 2012
1,625
318
Phoenix
Really? :/

I read the Watch HIG and watch about 10 videos on YouTube and that was it, I am proficient at making watch apps and had a nice one in the store on day one.

It is super limited and simple, there is very little to go wrong with.

What you struggling with?


Setting up a shared target for coredata and migrating coredata processes from the app delegate was pretty rough (all examples i could find were in swift =/. Now syncing coredata between the phone and watch is the problem I face. What is the name of your app id love to check it out.
 

DannyBres

macrumors 65816
Oct 30, 2007
1,412
6
UK
App link is in my signature.

Ah, I migrated all my core data methods to a singleton helper object, that estabishes the context and model for me, so I can use it from any target. You'll also need to use AppGroups for sharing the SQLlite db and NSUserDefaults between targets.

I think i found a guide for sharing core data with a Today Widget, try googling "core data appgroup" there is a lot there.
 

TouchMint.com

macrumors 68000
May 25, 2012
1,625
318
Phoenix
App link is in my signature.

Ah, I migrated all my core data methods to a singleton helper object, that estabishes the context and model for me, so I can use it from any target. You'll also need to use AppGroups for sharing the SQLlite db and NSUserDefaults between targets.

I think i found a guide for sharing core data with a Today Widget, try googling "core data appgroup" there is a lot there.

Yea I was able to figure that out but it wasn't fun. Just saying starting from scratch with no programming exp on the watch is going to be very hard. There's really not that much code out there and what is out there is mostly in swift while most Iphone stuff is in objc.


On a side note your app looks pretty nice!
 

CobraPA

macrumors 6502a
Mar 12, 2011
733
175
Lansdale, PA, USA
Yeah, have to agree, it's challenging. Getting data between an iphone app and the watch takes a chunk of code and configuration depending on what you want to do. I just went through that for a car parking finder app and it takes more work than I would have expected.

* Tried to add to sig, but doesn't seem to be showing up.
 
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