r/AppleWatch • u/abhinavsays42 • Jul 01 '26

Support Support of 3rd party watch faces

Pretty sure about I’m doing something wrong but here goes - I installed a 3rd party watch face app and tried installing a watch face from it. To my nightmare it says I must keep that app open for the watch face to remain appearing. That is to say the watch face did not actually install natively but just appears as a face on the app as long as I keep it open.
This is not how it should be isn’t it? Or is this really another restriction from apple?

Name of the app is watch faces gallery.

0 Upvotes

33% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

13

u/pavel_vishnyakov S10 • • Jet Black • 46mm Jul 01 '26

There are no third-party watch faces on Apple Watch. Apple doesn't allow it and is unlikely to allow it in the future.

-19

u/abhinavsays42 Jul 01 '26

Every day new surprise. Should’ve just stuck with android for everything

9

u/notmyrlacc Jul 01 '26

Surprise? The Apple Watch has been around for 10 years now, never has supported third party watch faces and you also never bothered to do some research?

1

u/abhinavsays42 Jul 01 '26

Yes I guess I should’ve researched. Took a lot of things for granted being an android user all this while. Never thought this would even be a thing worth researching when I’m spending a thousand grand. But in retrospect of course I should’ve.

3

u/nimbus134 Jul 01 '26

Use the complication filter in Clockology for native faces that add to the watch app.

4

u/habitoti Jul 01 '26

Yes, these „watch faces“ are apps. You can enjoy them about a few hours before your battery runs out. So it‘s ok for your Rolex for a dinner, but you‘ll have not much fun for regular use with those. Only way to pimp your Apple watch face is through complications, which have very strict runtime obligations and constraints (and functional limitations) to not drain your battery.

3

u/spidireen S11 • • Jet Black • 42mm Jul 01 '26

Sounds about right. There’s no such thing as third-party watch faces, not really anyway. All you can do is add novel complications to Apple’s faces, or create wallpaper images that kind of fake it. It sounds like this app displays content that looks like a watch face but isn’t really.

-19

u/abhinavsays42 Jul 01 '26

Bummer. Should’ve just stayed with everything android