The best Android smartwatches have gotten better over the years. TheSamsung Galaxy Watch 6and theGoogle Pixel Watch 2provide all-day battery life while tracking all your key health metrics. But they all pale compared to the Apple Watch, which is perhaps the gold standard for fitness tracking in the smartphone world. Sadly, like other Apple products, theApple Watchonly works with an iPhone. However, the company reportedly worked on making the Apple Watch compatible with Android before canceling the project at the last minute.
ABloombergreport details that under Project Fennel, Apple engineers were working on adding Android compatibility to the Apple Watch and the Health app. But just before the project was nearing completion, it was canceled. Why? Because of “business considerations.” Apple likely feared the move could negatively impact iPhone sales. A source familiar with the decision said bringing the Apple Watch to Android would have diluted the “value of the watch to the iPhone.”
The report does not explicitly mention the timeframe when Apple considered bringing Apple Watch to Android. But this is not the first time we have heard that the Cupertino company considered bringing one of its popular apps or accessories to Android.
In 2013, anApple executive wanted to bring iMessage to Android. In fact, Eddy Cue, the current SVP of services at Apple, wanted to create a full-time team that worked on bringing iMessage to Android. However, the idea was shot down by Craig Federighi and other executives to create an ecosystem lock-in for Apple users and to boost the sales of iOS devices. This is also perhaps a key reason behindApple not adding RCS support to iMessage.
Right now, the only way touse an Apple Watch with an Androidis to get the LTE variant of the wearable. You can then use the watch for tracking your health and using standalone apps. But since you cannot pair the wearable to Android, you will miss out on notifications.
While some Android smartwatches might pack better sensors and hardware than the Apple Watch, the latter trumps them with its superior user experience. Apple’s Health app also does a far better job analyzing the collected data and showing vital health metrics and trends, which could potentially be life-saving in some instances.
The Android smartwatch ecosystem languished for several years following the release of Wear OS 2 in 2018. That is until Google and Samsung joined hands for Wear OS 3 in 2021. Since then, the platform has grown by leaps and bounds, helped further by Qualcomm’s release of more power-efficient wearable chips. But Android’s smartwatch platform is still notably inferior to the Apple Watch, especially in user experience.
