Local and remote notifications enable an app that isn’t running in the foreground to inform users about new, relevant information that’s available.
iOS has had notification support since iOS 3, and its abilities have steadily increased over the years. With iOS 7, Apple added silent remote notifications support, allowing apps to wake up in the background and perform important tasks. Actionable notifications, added in iOS 8, allow users to take an action on a notification without first opening the app.
Existing iPhone apps that currently support notifications will work on the Apple Watch without any changes. WatchKit uses a default system interface to show notifications.
However, with a little work, you can build beautiful, custom Watch notifications. During this talk I’ll cover the two new types of WatchKit notifications: short look and long look notifications.