Apple Restricting New Pebble Smartwatches From 'Being Awesome' With iPhone
Migicovsky says that it was difficult to design for iPhones when he was working on the original Pebble watch, and in the last eight years, "things have actually gotten worse." He said that his company will "build a good app for iOS," but that it is impossible for a third-party smartwatch to replicate the functions of the Apple Watch. He shared an extensive list of the limitations:
- There's no option for sending text messages or iMessages.
- There's no option for replying to notifications or taking actions like marking something as done.
- There is little inter-app communication, which makes it difficult for Pebble to work with other iOS apps.
- If the iOS app is closed, the watch can't access the app or the internet.
- The watch cannot detect if you're using your phone, so it will buzz and display a notification regardless.
- There's no easy option to allow developers to create watch faces and apps for Pebble that would be available through the Pebble iOS app.
This is Apple using the power of its integrated ecosystem to snuff out competition, plain and simple.
There might be some very good security reasons iMessage and FaceTime are not available on third-party devices, but otherwise I can't think of any good reasons Apple can't build public APIs to integrate third-party watches with iPhone and iOS. It's just Apple protecting their bottom line. This behavior needs to be regulated.