Project Geneva: Watch Half-Full

I go back and forth a lot on whether we’ll ever get the ability to create 3rd party watch faces for the Apple Watch. While I’ve enjoyed the process of designing my own, it’s unclear if they’re something I’ll ever be able to publish. I’ve decided that I can look at this situation as either a frustration or an opportunity. Or, in the terms of the old idiom, half-full or half-empty.

Recently I realized that I’ve been too focused on my inability to develop for this part of the Apple Watch screen:

This is the half-empty view.

Instead what I should really be focused on is this part:

The half-full view.

I have extensive control over what is shown here and for many of the watch faces, this area makes up the vast majority of the screen. Other than the design of the watch hands or appearance of the digital time numerals, I can do a whole lot with the complication tools I already have.

To that end, I’m starting a journey I’m calling Project Geneva, in which I’m going to see just how far I can push customizability and design of complications for the Apple Watch.

The first instance of this is Geneva Moon (previously named Moon++), which was a great testing ground for seeing if there was user interest in excellent complications. It has been very warmly received and I found the process of making it a lot of fun.

I have many more ideas for where I can go with complications and their associated watch apps. Over the next few months I’m planning to release a series of super-customizable, thoughtfully designed complications. I hope you’ll follow along.

David Smith