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Getting Started With watchOS 9 Complications in WidgetKit
An in-depth guide to creating an amazing daily quotes app
I had some fun recently adding complications to my strength training app Strength++, as I went directly to the “new” WidgetKit framework. It’s not actually new, but what is new in wOS 9 is that you can use WidgetKit instead of the old ClockKit to create complications for the watch.
Let’s not lose more time and get to work. You will find the code here, both in an initial version if you want to code along and a final version if you want to look over everything.
We’re using a DailyQuote app I’ve created for this purpose, which shares most of its code base between the iOS and watchOS app. iOS app is targeting iOS 16, and watchOS, of course, has a minimum version of wOS 9.
We first need to add an extension for the complications, so in Xcode, go to File -> New -> Target, select the watchOS tab and then select Widget extension.
- Tap Next.
- Insert a product name.
I went for DailyQuote Complications.
- Uncheck Include Configuration Intent, as these complications we’re building today are not configurable
- Make sure your project is selected in the dropdown and also Embed in is set to your watch app.
Tap Finish and Activate to activate your new target.
You can see now in the project navigator that a new folder under the name you provided before contains a swift file, an Assets folder, and an Info.plist file. Go ahead and open the…
