Luring developers with the tools to make apps for its inaugural smartwatch, Apple Inc. announced yesterday the availability of WatchKit.

“Apple Watch is our most personal device ever, and WatchKit provides the incredible iOS developer community with the tools they need to create exciting new experiences right on your wrist,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing.

WatchKit has been released as part of the iOS 8.2 and Xcode 6.2 beta and developers can download both of them from Apple’s developer site. Currently WatchKit can be used to create Apple Watch apps that are powered by the iPhone and Glances, which aim to provide users with quick information like news or sport. In addition, it can also be used to create actionable notifications, which will require an action or response from the user. For example, users will be able to switch off their lights once leaving their home, by completing the necessary action on their Apple Watch.

Several developers have already started working with WatchKit, which Apple highlighted in their press release, including ESPN, Instagram, and American Airlines.

The Verge has worked their way through the WatchKit introduction video and put together a list of findings on how Apple Watch works, here are some of the highlights (see full video below.)

WatchKit highlights

An iPhone is required most of the time

Watch apps will extend iOS apps. According to Apple: “You begin your Watch app development with your existing iOS app, which must support iPhone. As the wearer interacts with the Watch App, Apple Watch and iPhone pass information back and forth. Taps and other messages from Apple Watch cause code in your WatchKit Extension [e.g. iPhone] to execute.”

Apple’s documents also state, “A Watch app complements your iOS app; it does not replace it. If you measure interactions with your iOS app in minutes, you can expect interactions with your Watch app to be measured in seconds.”

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Apple Watch’s two “Retina displays”

As stated in the UI documentation, the 38mm device will be 272 x 340 pixels, while the 42mm one will be 312 x 390 pixels.

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Maps are non-interactive snapshots

Users are unable to scroll around the map; it merely provides a snippet the size of the display. Once a user taps the snippet, they will be taken to the Apple Maps app.

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A new font

Apple has designed a custom font called San Francisco.

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20MB of images but no videos

20MB of image resources can be cached in the app. Apart from these images, anything else comes from the WatchKit extension. However, there is no support for videos.

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Apps flow like a responsive website

“Unlike iOS, where you place views at a coordinate on the screen, with WatchKit, objects automatically flow downward from the top left corner of the screen, filling the available space,” Apple wrote. This level of responsiveness will make things easier for developers and if Apple decides to make different sized watches it will be a better experience for the watch owners.

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Native apps are coming next year

As stated in their press release, “Starting later next year, developers will be able to create fully native apps for Apple Watch.”

It is rumoured that the Apple Watch will launch in spring 2015, however an exact launch date is still to be announced by Apple.

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Image via Apple