The Apple Watch could be the game changer that the company and its fans hope it will be, but it'll have to finally make it out of the labs and into the wilds for that determination to be made. It may be too little too late, with the Apple Watch expected to launch in less than two months, but a developer has crafted a hack that enables Google's Android Wear platform to accept notifications from iOS.
Developer Mohammad Abu-Garbeyyeh released a short clip that shows his Android Wear smartwatch, a Moto 360, receiving a text alert at almost the same time his iPhone receives a text message.
To accomplish the feat, Abu-Garbeyyeh side-loaded an app onto the Moto 360 and he says he intends to share it online soon. The app was designed to field alerts from notifications services, one of which includes the Apple Notification Center Service (ANCS).
It's a significant step in getting iOS and Android were to talk out their differences, but there are a lot more problems in the way of the two platforms.
Android Wear still gives a cold shoulder to iOS app notifications, incoming calls, emails, and navigation data. iOS still ignores Android Wear's health information and voice commands.
Check out the video of Abu-Garbeyyeh's iPhone and Moto 360 having a lovely little chat:
While an exact date hasn't been set, the Apple Watch is expected to finally launch in April 2015 after being unveiled in September of 2014. Android Wear watches hit the market earlier in 2014 and other smartwatches had already been released, but Apple is continuing its trend of showing up fashionably late to the party.
During his time at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference on Feb. 10 of this year, Apple CEO Tim Cook noted that his company's smartwatch is showing up late to a market that has been moving forward for quite some time now.
"If you think about the MP3 industry, we weren't the first company to make an MP3 player, there were lots of companies in this," Cook said. "They weren't used very much. They were fundamentally hard to use -- the user interface was bad and you almost needed a Ph.D. to use them. They're not memorable. I see the smart watch category very much like that."
Cook said so far, smartwatches haven't changed how people live their lives. However, he says Apple plans to change that.
"At Apple, that's our objective -- we want to change the way you live your life," said Cook.
