Like the iPod, could the mass appeal of the Apple Watch hinge on Apple

Like the iPod, could the mass appeal of the Apple Watch hinge on Apple “playing nice” with the competition? Evan Blass reckons so...

I don't wear watches. I have skinny, hairy wrists, so unlike the brave souls who put themselves (and their forearms) on the front lines, I would never be able to do a wrists-on with any of the members of this emerging class of devices. And unlike what seemed to be a chorus of haters yesterday and today, I am actually looking forward to the Apple Watch. But I can't even start anticipating ownership, as folks are already doing months prior to its release. Reason: I don't use an iPhone. 

Not that I haven't in the past; I was quite happy with the iPhone 4 for almost a full year, during which time I considered it the best handset on the market -- with a tightness of tolerances and quality of materials rarely seen in consumer electronics. But before the iPhone there was Windows Mobile, and after a year I moved on to the increasingly green pastures of Android, with its refreshingly larger screen sizes, resolution, and customizability. It stands to reason that there will be another platform after Android, too. (I've often toyed with the idea of going Windows Phone.) 

Unlike Nokiasoft, whom I once opined "needed" Android -- prior to the Nokia X -- the Apple Watch certainly does not need to support Android users to be considered a successful product, certainly worthy of a sequel. I do hope that it's one which will pair up with Android phones, at least to the extent that it can tap into their required sensors (connectivity, GPS), so that wanting an Apple Watch does not require making the often-difficult decision of buying a new phone, on a new platform (though Apple certainly hopes to convert some phone owners, to be sure).

This is not the first time the company has been at a crossroads in terms of cross-platform development: in October of 2003, Apple famously opened up iPod ownership to Windows users by releasing a version of iTunes for its much larger rival's operating system. Steve Jobs was unsurprisingly, and adamantly, opposed to the idea, and it reportedly took Phil Schiller and Jon Rubenstein straight up telling him that they were going to proceed with the project, for him to finally acquiesce.

Apple went on to develop a Windows version of Safari, of course, and who could forget the company's short-lived attempt to license genuinely authorized Macintosh "clones" to third party OEMs, or the Mac's somewhat epic changeover from IBM/Motorola-built PowerPC to Intel-made silicon, and the subsequent Boot Camp capability to dual-boot Windows alongside the machine's native OS. 

In other words, playing nice with the competition is not without precedent in the history of Apple. And Google, at least, is notorious for making a plethora of high-quality, hugely popular iOS apps, with Microsoft more recently following suit. But Android Wear watches require Android phones to work, and the Apple Watch requires an iPhone to function -- there's no possibility of using them autonomously of the host phone. (In that sense, they are truly accessories, albeit lavishly priced ones.) Therein lies the problem: the smartwatch category seems to be shaking out as a bunch of self-contained walled gardens -- with Sony and Samsung also offering their own ecosystems -- i.e. totally distinct from the market for universally-compatible Bluetooth headsets, for instance It seems unlikely that any of the players will reevaluate these stances.

From what I hear, making the Apple Watch actually work with Android, while certainly not prohibitively difficult -- especially for a company with Apple's resources -- would not be dead simple either. What it all boils down to is the individual manufacturers' use of disparate Bluetooth hardware and, critically, Bluetooth stacks, which can differ from OEM to OEM and sometimes lack documentation. So a write once, deploy widely model would not work here, as Apple would need to make sure all the necessary sensors on the most popular Android phones were covered. Then, of course, there's the formidable task of overhauling the look and feel of the interface to be less iPhone-y and more closely in line with Google's Material design language.

So, while I am hopeful that Apple will choose to court the Windows users of the mobile world, the nearly 85% of new smartphone owners selecting Android devices in the latest quarter, am I expecting or even somewhat optimistic about the possibility? Absolutely not; only abysmally poor Watch sales performance among iPhone owners would lead to that drastic step, I suspect. But if Watches can keep innovating faster than Android Wear and its partner OEMs can, I also suspect that eventually the cries for Schiller to once again step up and take a stand, will be almost deafening.