WWDC 2021 starts Monday. Here’s what I’m hoping to see that would help me with Sprint-o-Mat.
- Third-party workout apps should be able to keep the screen live, like the built-in app does. It’s a pain to do workouts and see blurred screens, especially for apps like meditation or yoga where you might not be able to easily move your wrist. Even with my app, I constantly see blurred screens during my run and have to shake my wrist to see my progress.
- The Activity app has bugs with showing third-party workouts. There seem to be undocumented data types that the real Workouts app is able to write, and segments don’t work at all.
- There are still a bunch of kinks with regards to independent watch apps. For example, users control HealthKit permissions on the watch, but location on the phone.
- There is still no way to use the built-in timer controls with SwiftUI. They are built to be battery efficient, so making them available makes it easier to keep the screen live.
This list is pretty similar to last year because they didn’t address any of these. The first one would be good for all workout apps, so I really hope they do it this year.