9to 5 Mac reports that developers Steve Troughton-Smith, Saurik and Adam Bell have hacked the Apple Watch on watchOS 2 so that it can run truly native apps.
Apparently, despite Apple saying that native apps will run on watchOS 2, it is not exactly the sort of “native” that developers were hoping for. Basically, the logic code is now running on the Apple Watch, but raw access to the watchOS 2 user interface is still not possible on watchOS 2.
What this actually means is that frameworks such as UlKit can’t be used to draw custom UI, therefore developers are constrained to using the same techniques used for current WatchKit apps that feature image sequences to create effects.
The demo video shows how the team got a fully interactive 3D object working on the Apple Watch via Apple’s own SceneKit framework.
And it’s not just SceneKit that can be used, but any UI framework that is available to iPhone and iPad developers.
Source: Developers hack Apple Watch to run real UIKit-backed native apps 9to5Mac
