I guess I'm confused. Apple says it can't because of a technical issue. Is it bluetooth? I know some android phones have issues with bluetooth devices like GoPros, the Pixel line in particular. That said if Samsung was able to get their Gear watches (which I don't think they support iOS anymore) to work, then I only see this as a big excuse. I have a feeling it was more of a privacy issue?
I suspect BT is a major cause. Apple may want to make sure that the apple watch experience is at least as good as it is on iphone. So apple may be unwilling/unable to spend the resources to support every android device out there.
And working in BT consumer products, yes, android bluetooth is still a shitshow and device-dependent. Each radio vendor and android device has its own quirks that take time and resources to account for. Apple has had a very tight leash on what its devices do for bluetooth.
That is obviously not the real reason. Garmin has succeeded in maintaining reliable Bluetooth connectivity between their smartwatches and a wide range of third-party Android phones. And they did it with a small fraction of Apple's resources.
> Whatever the "technical issue" was, it would have to be hardware related givent that AOSP is open source.
And it would have to be an issue that none of the other "works with android" wearables faced / managed to circumvent and an issue that google wasn't going to fix upstream.
I'm sure apple "tried" to bring the watch to android the same way a puppy tries to "drop it" before running away with something it knows it shouldn't have.
Just because AOSP exist doesn't mean that Apple would be able to get any Apple Watch specific things merged. And if you get something merged into AOSP today it will be quite a while before a significant portion of the Android devices in the wild actually contains those additions.
