Developers are quickly losing interest in developing apps for Apple’s watchOS because of the platform’s limited independence, Business Insider reports. Realm VP Tim Anglade, whose company’s database is used by around 100,000 app developers, said while apps for tvOS are on the upswing, new apps for Apple Watch have seen a massive decline in 2016. “On a weekly basis we’re seeing very few Watch apps, compared to iOS apps,” Anglade said. “For every 1,000 new iOS apps being built, there are 10 tvOS apps and maybe 1 Watch app.”
The initial rush to write watchOS apps has tapered off as developers aren’t seeing much return on their investment. Anglade said Apple’s recent move requiring all new Apple Watch apps to be native to the device could break the image developers have of the watch as merely a companion to the iPhone and not a device onto itself. “Apple published a road map, to be able run independent apps, and that’s a big deal,” he said.
