Apple Watch finally went on sale last week. Apple’s first foray into the wearable world reminds me a lot of the iPhone. It is revolutionary and easily the best smartwatch in the market, but it has some limitations.
Some are hardware constraints such as battery life, water resistance etc., which will hopefully be addressed in Apple Watch 2, but there are some that are software related that can probably be overcome and even enhanced by hacking the device.
When I look back, it is almost unbelievable that we could not install third-party native apps or do something as basic as copy and paste on the original iPhone. But that didn’t stop people from buying the device. In fact, it inspired hackers to figure out a way to jailbreak iPhone, and install the first-ever native game app on the iPhone. It ushered the way for Apple to eventually launch the App Store.
You get the same nostalgic feeling with the Apple Watch. We can’t wait to see the hackers jailbreak Apple Watch to give us the capability to install third-party apps, and customize the device in every way possible. Here are some of the reasons I want to jailbreak my Apple Watch:
#1. Native apps
As you probably know by now, third-party Apple Watch apps are basically extensions of their iPhone counterparts. They aren’t native apps running on the Apple Watch itself. The code is running on the iPhone while the Apple Watch displays their user interface. So they’re quite limited in functionality, and not as powerful as they could be.
So one of the primary reasons to jailbreak Apple Watch is to be able to install native apps developed by Cydia developers, which make use of Apple Watch hardware such as heart rate monitor that cannot be utilized by third-party Watch apps currently.
#2. Custom Watch Faces
Apple Watch comes with some great watch faces. But they’re still quite limited. So the ability to install custom watch faces would be pretty cool. There are not too many Apple Watches currently, but one way to make your Apple Watch unique would be to be able to install custom Watch faces.
#3. Themes
Watch OS, which is a flavor of iOS is pretty slick with the Home screen, watch faces, glances etc, but as we have seen with iOS, you end up getting bored with the same look and feel, which is why people love to jailbreak their iPhone to install WinterBoard to install themes to change the look and feel. Similarly, we can’t wait to see what Cydia designers and developers can do to change the look and feel of Watch OS.
#4. Customizations
Jailbreaking will allow me to customize my Apple Watch in every way possible by installing jailbreak tweak. After using the Apple Watch for 5 days, there are couple of things I want to customize right now:
a. Change the size of the app icons: The size of the icons on Apple Watch’s Home screen are just too small for my fingers, so I end up opening the wrong app quite often. I would like to be able to increase the size of the icons slightly.
b. Change the default timeout setting: When you move the wrist in “tell the time” position, it turns the screen on for 6 seconds, and then turns it off again. I would like to be able to change it to be able to tweak this setting to 10 seconds or more as I find 6 seconds too short to quickly read a message.
And not to forget the ability to change the system font, alert sounds and lots more.
#5. Custom complications
One of the cool features of the Apple Watch is the ability to customize Watch face by allowing you to also change the individual elements. Apple called these elements complications and there are a variety included in the Watch OS such as Date, Calendar, Moon phase, Sunrise/sunset, Weather, Activity summary, Alarm, Timer, Stopwatch, Battery charge, World Clock, Expanded views of all the preceding features plus Stocks etc. I can’t wait to see how Cydia developers will make use of this feature to add more functionality to the Watch face for quick and easy access to information.
It also remains to be seen how soon the hackers will be able to release a jailbreak for iOS 8.3 or iOS 8.4, and how easy it is going to be able to jailbreak Apple Watch.
These are just five reasons that I could think of why I want to jailbreak my Apple Watch. What about you? Do you want to jailbreak Apple Watch? If so, please do let me know the reason, and I will update the list with your pick.
