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Google Reportedly Preparing Android Wear App for iPhone and iPad

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A few readers have asked about this, regarding my comments earlier today regarding the lock-in advantage Apple Watch has for iPhone owners. An Android Wear app for iOS could definitely be a thing — look no further than Pebble. But the integration between an iPhone and an Android Wear device would be limited by the constraints of what iOS apps from the App Store are capable of. Apple Watch integration is built into iOS itself.

Jason Snell, who’s worn a Pebble for two years, writing for Macworld a few weeks ago:

Unlike all the Android Wear watches out there, Pebble’s watches have always claimed iOS compatibility. That’s true of the Pebble Time, too. But in the past two years as a Pebble user, one thing has been abundantly clear: My Pebble’s relationship with iOS has been fraught with difficulty. I had to fiddle endlessly with Notification Center settings to get alerts to properly display on my watch, and since the release of iOS 8 I’ve found that more often than not my Pebble has just silently lost its connection to my iPhone — or the Pebble app says it is connected, but it doesn’t actually send any notifications. Except when it does.

Meanwhile, Pebble keeps announcing new features that work pretty well with Android.

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mrdgreene
3324 days ago
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I've found the opposite experience. Just switched to an android phone 3 weeks ago. Pebble was rock solid with my iPhone 5. Worked perfectly. So far on android I've had to download an extra app just to get music controls to work across all apps. And the phone constantly looses connections during the day. Additionally there are some things with *less * functionality - e.g. you cant answer call with pebble on android.
Ireland
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aaronwe
3324 days ago
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This will eventually get Apple into antitrust trouble, probably in Europe before the US. Secret APIs that Apple Watch can use but other watches can't aren't cool.
Denver