Exclusive interview with well-known iOS developer Wang Wei: Apple Watch development is a breeze

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The interviewee is Wang Wei, whose Weibo ID is "onevcat". He is known as Miaoshen in the circle. He is a well-known iOS/Unity developer. He currently lives in Japan and works for LINE. Miaoshen is the initiator of the objc China project. He has open-sourced the Xcode plug-in VVDocumenter, which is widely loved by developers. He is the main creator or participant in the development of many games such as "Ji Knight and ***'s Hundred Dragon War", "Hero Slash", "Adventure Puzzle Kingdom" and "Little Bear Pushing Gold Coins". His personal application representatives include "Pomodoro Work Method" (Pomodoro Do) and "Cloud Accounting" (Our Money)

As a disruptive product that the industry has high hopes for, Apple Watch is undoubtedly the biggest highlight of this Apple conference. Apple's attitude towards Apple Watch can also be seen from Cook's unremitting appearance in major media.

A First Look at WatchKit

However, for developers, developing for Apple Watch is more valuable.

On November 29 last year, Apple released WatchKit with Xcode 6.2 Beta. However, the latest version of WatchKit did not open more interfaces to developers. Wang Wei believes: "Perhaps due to the limitations of processing performance and power or other reasons, the apps on the watch are destined to be just an extension and supplement to the mobile phone apps." This is similar to the previous situation of the notification center expansion, which is also Apple's positioning of the previous watch app.

However, precisely because the provided interface is relatively simple and has many restrictions, developers who have previous experience in multi-target development (such as notification center extensions or custom input methods) should be familiar with developing Apple Watch Apps.

Wang Wei also believes that: "In simple terms, the Apple Watch App is responsible for display and interaction on the watch, and the actual instructions and logic are still processed by the mobile phone. Therefore, there may be many times in development when information needs to be transmitted between different devices, but the WatchKit API is still very user-friendly, so there is no need to worry at all."

However, I believe that Apple's unremitting efforts to promote Apple Watch are not just to make it an accessory to mobile phones. In an interview with the media, Cook also said that he would make Apple Watch as indispensable as iPhone. Therefore, the full version of WatchKit is what all developers are looking forward to.

When talking about the full version of WatchKit, Wang Wei mentioned: "By opening up more sensors, we can even create watch apps that are completely independent of the phone. This will lead to many interesting apps that can really change our lifestyle."

Watch App

In December 2014, the number of apps on Google Play exceeded 1.5 million, and just one month later, the number of apps on the App Store also exceeded 1.5 million. Therefore, in one year, the number of mobile apps increased by more than 600,000, which means that more than 800 new apps are released every day.

The app market is already a red ocean. Unless the app is novel and well-made, most apps may not survive well. If you want to gain something from the Apple Watch App, you still need to polish the product carefully.

Wang Wei told me: "What is important is the change of thinking, because the usage scenarios of watches are actually very different from those of mobile phones. How to grasp this difference will be the key to whether a Watch App can be successful."

The reality is that many developers have already developed some games based on the current version of WatchKit, but the response they received was very bad. Putting aside the issue of mobile phone battery life, games must be an indispensable part of the Watch App.

"Judging from the API of the primary version of WatchKit, it should be somewhat difficult to develop a fun game for watches now. Games have always been a major category of apps, and the market also has a strong demand for games on mobile devices. Watches are now a brand new stage for everyone, and there will definitely be many new ideas, so I am looking forward to and optimistic about games suitable for watches," said Wang Wei.

Language Selection

In 2014, Swift quickly became popular in iOS development at an astonishing speed, and even had the potential to surpass its big brother Objective-C. Many developers are also struggling to choose between these two languages. Regarding the choice of development language, Wang Wei believes: "If it is a small project or a personal project, I will choose to use Swift, because Swift can save a lot of stereotyped code and the development efficiency will be higher. But if it is a large commercial project or in an existing Objective-C project, I may still prefer to use Objective-C, because it can be seamlessly compatible with existing projects and has more tools available. However, this situation may be completely changed in one or two years as Apple improves Swift and the community develops rapidly."

For developers, whether it is Objective-C or Swift, they hope to quickly adapt to the development rhythm and develop better apps.

Regarding the growth of developers, Wang Wei believes: "For beginners of programming, whether it is iOS or other development, one thing in common is that they need more practice. Many problems will only be encountered in practice, and only then will you find ways to solve them. I don't really agree with always learning by reading books. It is important to have books to introduce you to the door, but in the end you definitely need to work hard on your own to master and become proficient. So whether it is a personal project, a company project, or an open source project, if you can really participate in it, I believe you will make rapid progress."

One difference between iOS developers in Japan and many domestic developers is that they are more up-to-date with information and have a broader vision. Wang Wei said frankly: "Japanese teamwork and norms are really great. Basically, every project, regardless of size, will have very formal documents and wikis. In addition, aspects such as testing and CI are also very important. For programmers, development is very comfortable and they can basically focus on the content of development. Another advantage of Japanese developers is that they work seriously and confirm every feature repeatedly. The bug reports from QA are also very detailed, which is very helpful for locating problems. However, on the other hand, their foundation may be worse than that of domestic developers with CS backgrounds, and their development efficiency is also much lower. So developers from both countries actually have something to learn and draw lessons from each other."

Conclusion

On Apple's official website, Apple wrote, "Start on Apple Watch and continue on iPhone." Only outstanding products can be the stage for developers. Even if WatchKit makes developers dance in shackles, we are still full of expectations.

In addition, 51CTO Academy launched the world's first Apple Watch + Swift practical development! (with subtitles)