I've written up a few more details about the Apple Watch design for
iPeng:
http://penguinlovesmusic.de/2015/06/22/ipeng-for-apple-watch-design-notes/
IPENG FOR APPLE WATCH DESIGN NOTES
A device like the Apple Watch brings new challenges for the app design,
especially considering the limitations Apples current WatchKit has.
Communication with the watch is not very fast and consumes a lot of
battery power and since apps run on the iPhone, not the watch, every
piece of information needs to go back and forth. So uploading long lists
and the like or permanent remote communication right now dont look like
a good idea.
Also, there is a fixed and small set of user interface elements one can
use on the Watch. This is a pity particularly when it comes to the
volume buttons. Ideally, one would want to use the crown to change
volume, but currently thats not possible.
So browsing through long lists of thousands of albums or the like will
probably not make sense (Apples own apps are all quite limited in that
respect), Apples general guideline is to only implement tasks that
dont take longer than 10s since after that the arm will quickly start
to tire.
iPeng tries to find the sweet spot in between these limitations with its
current design, here are a few design features:
GLANCE AS ENTRY POINT
Navigating the honeycomb home screen is complicated and takes time. The
easier way to launch an app is through a glance. iPengs glance shows
you a NowPlaying screen, tapping it takes you to the app.
Currently, WatchKit glances cant contain any active elements, so there
are no buttons or other controls even though we would love to be able to
have them.
SCROLLING TRACK TITLES WITH CUSTOM FONT
Apples system font on the watch is optimized for legibility at small
font sizes. You can get a maximum number of (legible) rows on the
display this way, but its not the optimum solution if like in iPengs
case all you want to display are one or two rows of track title and
that quickly exceeds the width of the display. So iPeng uses a different
font with a smaller run width and uses a bigger character size instead.
To be able to show longer titles, the title label scrolls.
PAGE-BASED LAYOUT
iPeng uses a page-based layout, not a hierarchical menu structure. This
is familiar from the layout of the NowPlaying screen on iPhone, but on
the Apple Watch its actually a more important decision. Page-based apps
cannot have a hierarchical menu like the main menu on iPhone, so that
option is no longer available for additional functionality (like
search). But a hierarchical structure would have meant it takes longer
to get to the NowPlaying screen not a good idea for a functionality
you are probably going to use 90% of the time.
iPeng places the most important features right in front even if it means
less often used features might be more difficult to access.
SPEED
iPeng will sometimes trade perfect information for speed of access. On
iPhone, iPeng will keep a permanent connection to the server, allowing
iPeng to track a lot of states and always be aware of whats going on
with your Squeezeboxes. But establishing this connection takes seven
seconds on average. Add a few seconds for the app launch and you end up
with a time well in excess of the overall time you wanted to interact at
all. So iPeng on the watch will always try to use the quickest way to
access information or execute a command. Sometimes this means some
information is limited or updates later (e.g. artwork), but at the same
time it means its probably the fastest remote control app youve got
around.
THE FUTURE
The Apple Watch is a very new product, we will see how it evolves in the
future and what kind of usage schemes evolve, but right now I believe
iPeng is giving you a really good UI for the quick control of your
players on your wrist.
Apple also already announced watchOS 2.0 for this fall and it brings
some changes, the most important of which is that Apps will actually run
on the Watch, not the iPhone. This will probably help with performance
for some features but might even hurt for others (everything requiring
direct communication with the parent App on the iPhone will actually
take longer to execute). Overall, I would not expect the biggest impact
to be through faster loading times and access to the crown.
---
learn more about iPeng, the iPhone and iPad remote for the Squeezebox
and
Logitech UE Smart Radio as well as iPeng Party, the free Party-App,
at penguinlovesmusic.com
*New: iPeng 8, the Universal App for iOS 7 and iOS 8*
pippin's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=13777
View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=103778
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