Facebook Messenger joining the long list of discontinued Apple Watch apps later this month Apple Watch

https://9to5mac.com/2023/05/11/meta-killing-facebook-messenger-apple-watch-app/

3.8k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

Ugh. So frustrated by this app graveyard.

But I also don’t know how I’d solve it.

24

u/nate390 May 11 '23

Probably can’t solve it for apps. It’s a great form factor for glanceable information, it’s a terrible form factor for interactive apps.

Apple would probably have far better luck leaning in on first-class widgets, live activity notifications and support for third-party complications and watch faces. That way they can keep the “glanceability” appeal and, at the same time, encourage developers to focus their efforts on surfacing the right information at the right time rather than having to figure out how to make a usable interactive UI on a screen the size of a postage stamp.

That and they need to kill the need for companion apps on the phone once and for all.

11

u/[deleted] May 12 '23

Where the watch really shines is when developers stop thinking of it as a “small iPhone”, and start thinking of it as an “accessible alert”.

The best app experiences/extensions are when the app has a very predictable this-or-that choice that the user can quickly make without needing to haul out their phone.

The most recent experience I had with this was when I was out for dinner, I got a tap on my wrist and my parking app told me my parking would expire in 10 minutes and asked if I would like to extend for 30 minutes. Just tapped “yes” and got right back to dinner. No menu navigation or trying to find the options on my phone.

2

u/HVDynamo May 12 '23

Thing is though, I’ve been seriously cutting off notification privileges from a ton of apps. My phone never stops notifying me for shit I don’t care about. I want text/call/weather notifications in general, and for every other app I only want notifications when I actively have something going on with that app. I finally got the Uber app a couple weeks ago because I was going to need it to get to work from the shop. Every day for two weeks it was trying to get me to schedule more rides to get some deal… it lost its privileges real quick.

1

u/ifonefox May 12 '23

That and they need to kill the need for companion apps on the phone once and for all.

I thought they did? You can create watch apps and install that don't have an iPhone app.

1

u/Tunafish01 May 12 '23

It’s not really an issue. Who uses the apps on the watch? It’s a notification watch not a phone on your wrist .