Android Stomps Into Wearables Field

It appears Google wants to do for smartwatches what it did for smartphones -- that is, make a mobile operating system available to devs to tinker with as they see fit. Apple may have its iWatch, but Android Wear is likely to power a plethora of devices dreamed up by other hardware vendors. Motorola, LG and Samsung are among those that reportedly have Android Wear devices in the works.

Google on Wednesday released a developer preview for Android Wear, a day after announcing the project, which Android head honcho Sunder Pichai teased at SXSW earlier this month.

The preview, which includes a software development kit, an Android emulator and a preview support library, is for development and testing only -- not for production apps.

Developers will have to rewrite their Android apps, Carl Howe, a vice president at the Yankee Group, told LinuxInsider.
Some smartwatches, such as the Pebble, run both Android and iOS, but "that doesn't mean anything," Howe pointed out. "You can't go to the app store and download an app, [because] smartwatches are such a different form factor and work so differently."