Luxury Android Watches Must Work With iPhone To Succeed
This is not to suggest tha[t] an Android smartphone is the proverbial poor man’s iPhone. But the economic reality of the competition between them is that iPhone owners have more disposable income and are more willing to spend it. Those are the first preconditions to finding a receptive audience to luxury goods — and a luxury good is exactly what the Tag Heuer Android Wear watch promises to be. The watch clashes with its stated purpose by introducing its own precondition: you won’t be able to even boot it up without first connecting an Android device. Without Android, this Tag Heuer watch will be an expensive, probably splendid-looking paperweight.
This is exactly why I don’t see this new partnership between TAG Heuer and Google working out. The folks who could afford to buy luxury Android watches are likely to be folks who already own and use iPhones. And I can’t imagine a scenario where an Android Wear device has more access to an iPhone than an Apple Watch does, even if Google goes to great lengths to develop new interoperability standards for future versions of the software. “Compatible” and “integrated” are two very different things.
This ability to integrate within its own product lines is what makes Apple so special. And Apple Watch is, in my opinion, the most integrated product Apple’s ever made. It touches on every discipline that Apple’s mastered so far.
That’s going to be incredibly hard to beat.
[Image via The Verge]