Google has released a new mobile app to make the wearable technology with iOS based smartphones.
Just because you have an iPhone, it doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to choose from among Android based smartwatches, at least not when the application that Google has announced is installed onto the smartphone.
This represents the next serious move that has been made in the rivalry between Google and Apple.
As the two companies duke it out over smartwatches as they make their first steps into the market and onto people’s wrists, Google is now working to make sure that customers with iPhones won’t be limited exclusively to the Apple Watch if they want to use wearable technology. The reason is that there is a mobile app now being released that will unite the devices by allowing the devices based on the different operating systems to work together. This app first became available on Monday in the App Store.
This will be the first time that smartwatches other than the Apple Watch will work with an iPhone.
All of the latest Android wearable technology will be able to link to the iPhone through this app. It will give iPhone users the ability to use the connected features such as fitness information, directions, events notifications, Facebook updates, and emails. That said, it is important to point out that these wearables still will not be capable of being linked in a way that would make it possible for the Android gadgets to communicate with the other apps that a users may have installed onto his or her Apple Smartphone.
That will be a barrier that may still stand in the way of iPhone owners when it comes to choosing wearables outside of the Apple brand, unless Google is able to come up with a way to overcome that hurdle, as well. This, according to Ramon Llamas, an analyst from IDC.
For the moment, the Android smartwatches are likely to be most appealing to people who are interested in checking out the wearable technology, but who aren’t willing to fork over the amount of money that Apple is asking for their own device, in case the experience turns out to be nothing more than a novelty.