The fact of the matter is, Apple CEO Tim Cook laid out some really useful, fun features at his keynote<\/a>. But the degree of how useful and fun the watches turn out to be has a lot to do with the apps you can use on them.<\/p>\n How can we enhance our everyday lives<\/a> by bringing our smartphones to our wrists? How can we feel less tied down by tech and more empowered by it in a way that\u2019s not super invasive and consuming?<\/p>\n We believe that reaching that perfect balance is all about creating smartwatch apps that are innovative\u00a0and\u00a0powerful yet simple to use. So we\u2019re perfecting our own Apple Watch app team,<\/a>\u00a0as well as\u00a0chatting with people who have gotten a jump on building their own.<\/p>\n Together, we\u2019re starting to get a feel for smartwatches\u2019 potential and narrowing in on what exactly we can accomplish within this new realm of apps.<\/p>\n In our new\u00a0series of case studies leading up to the launch of the Apple Watch, we\u2019re talking\u00a0to people about how they\u2019ve created apps for a device\u00a0that no one has, right before everyone has it.<\/p>\n Mikael L\u00f6wgren<\/a> is an SAP consultant helping companies to create new, mobile-adapted user interfaces connected to SAP.<\/p>\n In November of last year, he had an idea for a simple iOS app that would help a lot of people. It\u2019s called RemindMeAt<\/a> and is\u00a0basically a location-aware notes app.<\/p>\n When he noticed many parents at his kid\u2019s daycare fumbling around for updated codes to get in the door every morning, he thought that if these notes popped up when you needed them (even before you realize it) that it would solve a big problem beyond the daycare.\u00a0It could remind you of what to pick up when you get to the grocery store or even remind you to make a phone call when you get into work.<\/p>\n Knowing that the Apple Watch release is only a week away, you may be thinking, \u201cDuh, this is the perfect app for a smartwatch.\u201d But L\u00f6wgren started out with a focus on iOS so people could get a good handle on that first.<\/p>\n Just as many of the greatest apps begin, L\u00f6wgren created RemindMeAt for his own, personal need. He found that there was no other app out there with the functionality he was looking for, so he set out to create one himself.<\/p>\n He said, \u201cI primarily wanted to use the app on the new iOS 8 widgets.\u201d In fact, he said you should only have to go into the app itself to create or update a note; otherwise it should work for you completely from the widget and notifications.<\/p>\n To start building the app, he recruited and hired a team of six freelancers in Ukraine\u00a0to work with from his home in Sweden. They started with iOS and then moved to the Apple Watch in three phases:<\/p>\n Test the idea and the basic functionality of the iOS app and get it to the App Store. At the\u00a0most basic level, he wanted the app to send a note at certain locations within a widget, and he wanted to completely understand the full Apple approval process. All of this took three weeks.<\/p>\n Next came\u00a0adding initial features and making adjustments based on what they\u2019d learned after the first version.<\/p>\n The third version of the iOS app was added to the App Store in April with Apple Watch support. So, if you\u2019re one of the lucky folks who are picking up the Apple Watch first thing on\u00a0April 24<\/span><\/span>, you\u2019ll be able to (and definitely should) download RemindMeAt<\/a>. L\u00f6wgren admits that there was a lot of uncertainty in building an app<\/a> for technology that wasn\u2019t even released yet. He said,<\/p>\n \u201cIt was very hard to know how I, or anyone, would actually use the Apple Watch. I had to imagine an Apple Watch and how I\u2019d like it to work, pretty much based on the Apple announcements. I had no guidance from what other apps usually look like, [how they] function, or from my own experience of what works or not.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n It\u2019s true that in the app space, where it seems like everything is a version of something else (Tinder for Twitter, Airbnb for 3D printing, etc.), it can be a bit nerve racking to create something truly from scratch. But L\u00f6wgren said, \u201cOn the other hand, it is a great opportunity to be one of the first and to learn a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n His justification for bringing RemindMeAt to the Apple Watch is simple enough. But a good test for you to decide if your idea merits a watch app is to ask yourself:<\/p>\n Is this an app that\u2019s equally, if not more useful on a watch than it is on a smartphone? And is it something you obviously can\u2019t do on a \u201cdumb\u201d watch?<\/strong><\/p>\n Ultimately, L\u00f6wgren\u2019s approach was to focus on functionality with this flagship version of the RemindMeAt app on Apple Watch. \u201cIt is a big risk to develop for something you\u2019ve never tried yourself,” he said. “So I took the approach of creating an initial version [that\u2019s] as simple as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n Fairly early on in the RemindMeAt project, L\u00f6wgren knew that he wanted to support the Apple Watch with the iOS app. That way, when the device was released, he wouldn\u2019t have to rework his base functionality altogether.<\/p>\n But he ran into an issue when the first version of the app was developed for the 8.3 iOS beta and then Apple released an update that didn\u2019t support all of the APIs.<\/p>\n The next hurdle, L\u00f6wgren said, was the Apple approval process. It\u2019s well known that Apple\u2019s app approval process isn\u2019t easy, but L\u00f6wgren said that for the Apple Watch (at least at the time), they didn\u2019t have any parameters for what they would and wouldn\u2019t allow. So, they were building the app based only on rumors and speculation.<\/p>\n \u201cI was nervous during the process, and glad when it was finally approved!,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to get caught up in making something and then realize that it takes even more work to tell people about what you\u2019ve made.<\/p>\n \u201cI started off with a very naive idea that the app should just magically sell itself,” L\u00f6wgren said. “[Then I realized that] I had to promote the app and this was perhaps [more] work than creating the app.\u201d<\/p>\n This can be especially tricky when you can\u2019t even give the media an exact launch date, because up until recently no one knew the day the Apple Watch would be released. L\u00f6wgren didn\u2019t like waiting through Apple\u2019s release delays, but he said that the silver lining was being able to use that extra time to perfect his product.<\/p>\n After developing his own RemindMeAt for the Apple Watch, L\u00f6wgren has some opinions of what the perfect watch app<\/a> entails:<\/p>\n He thinks they should display only the need-to-know info<\/a>. \u201c<\/span>More complex functions should be put into the iPhone app.\u201d<\/p>\n He\u2019s found it helpful to \u201cbuild iterative[ly] and easy to begin with, and ramp up with new functionality later as you see the usage of the app increase and you learn the capabilities of the Apple Watch.\u201d<\/p>\n When your alerts<\/a> move from your smartphone screen to your wrist, it\u2019s going to get old really fast if you get pinged for every RT or reply-all email.<\/p>\n L\u00f6wgren said, \u201cI believe in the early Apple user interface guidelines, where a user interface was compared to when you\u2019re on a date in a restaurant and the waiter comes by and interrupts you. It is critical that the waiter has something really important to say, otherwise you will be very irritated.\u201d<\/p>\n Measuring your heartbeat and physical activity\u00a0is probably only the beginning of what you\u2019ll be able to track with the Apple Watch. L\u00f6wgren said that he\u2019d like to use some kind of tracking technology<\/a> for an app in the future.<\/p>\n Of course, the Apple Watch hasn\u2019t launched yet, so it\u2019s hard to to learn any major lessons quite yet. But L\u00f6wgren said that he really wishes he knew more about promoting the app before starting.<\/p>\n \u201cI think I would start with promotion next time, to learn from potential users<\/a> what functionality they need or like.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n He said that exploring new methods of promotion did help him to narrow in on the best tools and processes before deciding to scale<\/a>. It also helped him to avoid wasting any money on excess marketing.<\/p>\n![\"remindmeat-bothapps\"](\"http:\/\/d1vqbpto5tbbz0.cloudfront.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/16095214\/remindmeat-bothapps.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nMeet\u00a0Mikael L\u00f6wgren<\/h2>\n
![\"remindmat-iPhone\"](\"http:\/\/d1vqbpto5tbbz0.cloudfront.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/16095215\/remindmat-iPhone.jpg\")
<\/p>\nCreating the iOS App<\/h2>\n
1. First iOS version<\/h3>\n
2. Second iOS version<\/h3>\n
3. Focusing on the Apple Watch<\/h3>\n
![\"remindmeat-2\"](\"http:\/\/d1vqbpto5tbbz0.cloudfront.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/16095216\/remindmeat-2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nEnvisioning New Tech<\/h2>\n
\n
Trials and Tribulations<\/h2>\n
From Product to Promotion<\/h2>\n
![\"remindmeat-1\"](\"http:\/\/d1vqbpto5tbbz0.cloudfront.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/16095217\/remindmeat-1.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe Perfect Watch App<\/h2>\n
Simplicity<\/span><\/h3>\n
Considerate Alerts<\/h3>\n
Take Advantage of Tracking<\/h3>\n
If He Could Do It All Over<\/h2>\n