The Apple Watch was almost compatible with Android

Apple’s famed walled garden approach means that most of its products and services are catered towards its ecosystem. The Apple Watch is a good example where it pretty much only works with the iPhone and not Android devices. But it turns out that Apple did initially try to include support for Android.

This was revealed during Apple’s response to the US DOJ lawsuit. The lawsuit gave an example of how the Apple Watch is only compatible with the iPhone. This in turn would essentially lock users to the Apple ecosystem as it would be costly for customers to have to ditch their Apple Watch if they were to switch to Android. Additional costs would be incurred if they had to buy a new smartwatch.

In response to that statement, Apple claims that at one point in time, they were working on Android compatibility. It seems that the company spent three years trying to make the Apple Watch work with Android. Due to technical limitations, those plans were ultimately scrapped, leaving us where we are right now.

There is no doubt that the Apple Watch would have a much greater reach had it been compatible with Android. For all we know, it could have even swayed Android users over to the iPhone. In any case, Android users have a lot of alternatives to choose from so maybe it’s not that big of a loss for them.