Look at each smartwatch shopping for information on the web. I assure they’re both divided into separate guides for iOS and Android, like The Verge’s, or embrace classes like “Best for iPhone homeowners” or “Best for Android.” (Also, like The Verge’s health tracker information.) It wasn’t at all times this fashion.
Five years in the past, you can purchase a Samsung or Fossil smartwatch and use it with an iPhone. The downside was it was by no means fairly nearly as good. Apple Watches had been superior, not solely as a result of they may seamlessly join along with your Mac and AirPods, however you can additionally ship fast replies to texts. Other third-party smartwatches couldn’t do all that.
Losing the flexibility to work together with different gadgets was hardly a deal breaker — it’s not that onerous to undergo the common Bluetooth pairing course of. But most individuals view smartwatches as a simple method to keep related with out glancing at their telephones. Losing fast replies since you may choose the look or options of a third-party machine? For many individuals, it’s a tradeoff that doesn’t make sense. For years, I’d ask machine makers why this characteristic wasn’t accessible. Every single time, from firms giant and small, the reply was that Apple didn’t enable it. So, I used to be hardly stunned when Android smartwatch makers began kissing iOS goodbye in 2021 with Wear OS 3. In the years since, the variety of platform-agnostic wearable makers continues to dwindle.
This is an enormous purpose why it’s an excellent factor that the European Commission lately gave Apple marching orders to open up iOS interoperability to different gadget makers. You can learn our explainer on the nitty gritty of what this implies, however the gist is that it’s going to be tougher for Apple to gatekeep iOS options to its personal merchandise. Specific to smartwatches, Apple should enable third-party smartwatch makers to show and work together with iOS notifications. I’m sure Garmin followers worldwide, who’ve lengthy complained in regards to the incapability to ship fast replies on iOS, erupted in cheers.
Apple, and at the least one tech publication, has decried this resolution as hindering Apple’s skill to innovate. In a press release, Apple spokesperson Marni Goldberg informed The Verge that it’ll drive the corporate to “give away our new options without spending a dime to firms who don’t must play by the identical guidelines.”
But the previous couple of years have been pretty lackluster for smartwatch innovation. Samsung blatantly copied Apple in its 2024 smartwatch lineup with the Galaxy Watch Ultra and Galaxy Watch FE. Google has principally caught to refining the Pixel Watch. Apple launched an Ultra mannequin in 2022, however in any other case, final 12 months’s Series 10 was one other iterative replace. The Ultra 2 solely acquired a brand new colour. (Even although that colour was sick as hell.) In the wearables world, smartwatches are form of… simply there.
These days, I obtain much more queries about good rings and good glasses — as a result of everybody is aware of that in case you have an iPhone, you get an Apple Watch, and in case you have an Android, you get a Galaxy Watch or a Pixel Watch. (Maybe a OnePlus Watch 2 or 3 in the event you actually care about battery.) If you’re an endurance athlete, you get a Garmin. There’s not a lot incentive for any of those firms to zhuzh up designs or assume out of the field when ecosystem lock-in all however ensures they don’t must. There’s no urgency. The result’s smartwatches have change into boring as we watch for the following Big Health Feature to get FDA clearance. I lengthy for the bizarre, frenetic pleasure of 2014-2020 period smartwatches. Instead, I’ve a tough time believing 2025 smartwatches can be a lot completely different from final 12 months’s. (For the report, I’d love to be confirmed improper.)
Fans of walled gardens must admit it doesn’t at all times work out. The Powerbeats Pro 2 must be a cautionary story of how the “it simply works” philosophy can backfire. Despite being an Apple product, Android customers even have extra alternative relating to how they use the Pro 2. On iOS, the guts fee characteristic is restricted to seven apps and customers should select between monitoring coronary heart fee or listening to tunes when related to gymnasium tools. Android customers don’t have any such limitations. Do the Powerbeats Pro 2 work extra seamlessly on the iOS apps it does help? Yes. But that’s not vital to everybody. Some folks simply need the flexibility to decide on how they use the merchandise they purchase.
The backside line is the EU’s transfer improves a shopper’s skill to select the most effective smartwatch for his or her wants no matter their telephone. There’s no purpose a grizzled marathoner who prizes in-depth coaching metrics, free teaching plans, and monthlong battery life ought to must get an Apple Watch Ultra over a Garmin simply because in addition they need to have fast replies. I’ll admit that it is mind-numbingly handy and nice to remain in a single ecosystem. But if the Apple Watch is really the most effective smartwatch on the market, it ought to be capable to defend that title even when third events have entry to iOS notifications.
