Is there going to be update for watchOS 6. I’ve read the blog post, that says that in your opinion there is not enough demand, but I also see a post asking for an update and the wearables are gaining in the popularity, how about that?
Second thing is that when one bought the book you have promised to update it. Does it mean thatif there are not enough sales, then the clients who bought the book are left with nothing? I don’t like that and like to kindly ask to revisit the decisions made and update the book. Maybe if updates it will not be forgotten and the sales will go up.
At this time, we don’t plan to update the book to watchOS 6, due to lack of interest from our readers. However, if that changes we’d be glad to pick it up again.
As for updates, we never promise to update any particular book. However, we do promise that if we do update a book, that update will be a free update for digital version customers. That does mean that from time to time we decide to discontinue a book if it isn’t popular enough, which happened in this case unfortunately.
I do appreciate you taking the time to write in about this though, because the more people ask for things like this the more we consider it!
Hi Ray,
I have been following you from the dawn of iOS development. Personally I subscribed your membership and bought a whole bunch of books.
From your comment, you said there is no enough demand. I can see the rationale. Or maybe after watchOS app can now be untethered from iPhone, the ecosystem of it is not very sound yet. So you guys want to wait and see. It could happen that Apple watch dies and resurrects afterward like Apple TV. So efforts put into it might need to be scrutinized.
All being said, we developer who own Apple watch or would like to seek the opportunity of maybe-blooming watch app market would like to keep up the pace with Apple. To us, it is risky but with huge opportunity also. With the hardware advances rapidly, maybe after a few more round, the watch can be a real product by itself. Maybe better than the first version of Apple Glass…
So I hope you guys consider putting some efforts on watchOS, even some tutorial will be great. I found the latest watch app tutorial is still of watchOS 4!
By the way, I am curious. How do you guys know that watchOS 6 is of little demand on the developer side. If possible, sharing your projection on watchOS is good for people like me who ask for an update.
It will make sense and get through us.
And we will decide if watchOS app is worthy putting anymore efforts on. And you guys will look good and keep the brand name Raywenderlich great in iDevice developer circles, which myself very much recommends with other newbie developers.
I would also love to see a book update to address watchOS 6. At the same time, when will Apple stop changing Swift!!! This is insane. This is not software engineering (requirements, design, implementation, testing, maintenance, maintenance,…) but some drunk driving (requirements, design, implementation, testing, [back to] requirements, design, implementation, testing,…) attempt in creating a new programming language. I am glad that Apple is not in charge of English grammar. We could barely understand each other every time a new dictionary is published.
Please reassess the demand for an updated Watch OS book. Your last update was in 2017. According to sources (Apple Statistics (2022) - Business of Apps) the sales of Apple Watches has more than tripled since your last update from 12.8 million units in 2017 to 43.1 million units in 2020. The watch is becoming ubiquitous, and, now that stand-alone watch apps are now the norm, the market is ripe for an explosion of useful applications. Additionally, with the expansion of sensors on the device, novel utilization of this wearable could be expanded.
As other comments have stated, there are other high quality books available, but, having read most of them, this platform’s writings are head and shoulders above the rest. I used to think that the Wenderlich approach added needless complexity to the neonate trying to learn basic concepts, but these really become a treasure trove when fully studied.
I surmise that there is some interest for the authors of this website since a couple of nice tutorials have been produced recently. Hopefully, this post (which is the first on this topic in over a year) will encourage other readers to render an opinion on the need for a new and up-to-date book on Apple Watch development. I bet there is a readership market for this topic. I’m anxious to hear what others say.