Despite slowing sales and only being on the market for six months, the Apple (AAPL) Watch has already moved into a second place market position among wearables, leaving Android smartwatch options in the dust.
Naturally, Google (GOOG, GOOGL) isn’t going to take that sitting down. The company has decided to open a new front in its war on the Apple Watch: release Android Wear for iOS.
Android Wear is Google’s version of Apple’s watchOS. It’s the operating system that powers the smartwatch (everything from the watch faces to the user interface), and it’s also the conduit for pairing the smartwatch with a smartphone — which most wearables rely on for connectivity.
While third-party smartwatches like those from Pebble have tried to carve a niche by being platform agnostic, the big companies have been dividing along platform lines, just like they did with smartphones and tablets. If you have an Android smartphone, you can’t connect an Apple Watch, you’ll need a device running Android Wear, and vice versa.
Android smartwatches had a head start of several years over the Apple Watch. Samsung (SSNLF) alone released several generations and multiple iterations of its Galaxy Gear in the past two years, and Android Wear itself was nearly a year old when the Apple Watch was released, yet Apple immediately dominated smartwatch sales.
Maybe iPhone owners are more predisposed to buying smartwatches in the first place.
Android Wear Steps Into iOS
Google’s solution to address that possibility is a little audacious. It developed an Android Wear app for iOS, and on August 31, it released it on Apple’s App Store.
As a result, iPhone owners who want a smartwatch are no longer limited to the Apple Watch (or something with limited functionality like a Pebble). They can now buy an Android Wear smartwatch and use it with their iPhone, an option that means a lot more choices of hardware and the potential for significant cost savings.
It also means that iPhone users who take the bait will likely be using Android Wear features like Google Now and Gmail instead of Siri and Apple’s equivalents.
At least that’s the theory.
The reality is a little more sketchy, at least for now.
For one, Google says the software will work with new Android Wear watches going forward. The LG Watch Urbane — the only smartwatch that was officially supported at launch — starts at $350, so at the moment there may be little or no savings compared to an Apple Watch Sport.
ArsTechnica tested Android Wear for iOS with some previous-generation wearables like the Motorola (MSI) Moto 360 (which can often be had for $150 or less) and found it worked, although not always seamlessly.
Limited User Experience
More importantly, when used with an iPhone, Android Wear simply doesn’t match the user experience you’d get with an Android smartphone or with using an Apple Watch. Google is only able to do so much when it comes to connectivity between the two platforms and it’s forced to play by the same restrictive rules that other iOS app developers are bound by.
That means irritating restrictions and half-baked features.
For example, on an Android smartwatch connected to an iPhone, you can reply to an e-mail notification generated by Google’s G-Mail. However, if you receive an SMS text message on your iPhone, you get the notification on the smartwatch and can read the text, but you can’t reply to it.
Because Apple doesn’t allow third-party app stores, that Android smartwatch won’t be able to run any Android Wear apps, either. Users will, however, be able to take advantage of Google Now, including its voice capabilities.
In other words, an Android smartwatch connected to your iPhone will offer more features than a Pebble or an advanced wearable like the Fitbit (FIT) Surge, but will seem hobbled compared to an Apple Watch.
How successful Google will be in getting iPhone users to opt for an Android Wear smartwatch instead of an Apple Watch will depend on a few key factors.
The first will be whether Apple continues to allow Google to offer the Android Wear for iOS app on its App Store. It’s always possible the company could yank the app on a technicality — something it hasn’t been shy about doing in the past.
The second is whether iPhone users will embrace hardware that isn’t made by Apple.
And te third factor is whether Google will continue improving Android Wear for iOS. While there are complaints about limited functionality, reviewers are quick to note that this is the first version of the app. Google may not be able to do anything about Apple’s technical roadblocks, but it has plenty of room to tweak Android Wear to make it better by doing simple things like offering more watch faces.
Of course Apple could also retaliate by releasing an app on Google Play that lets Android smartphone owners use an Apple Watch. It did recently put out the “Move to iOS” switcher app that makes it easier to dump all the data from an Android smartphone onto an iPhone, so the precedent to release its own Android apps has already been set.
Bottom Line
With the prospect of cheaper Android smartwatch offerings coming this holiday season, Google may try tempting the many iPhone owners who are on the fence about smartwatches to give the technology a try with less risk.
Using Android Wear instead of shelling out the big bucks for an Apple Watch lets these people get much of the smartwatch experience — the notifications plus goodies like Google Now — at lower cost, with the prospect that they’ll stick with the Android smartwatch (and Google services) because they’re good enough.
As of this writing, Brad Moon did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
