Android Wear with an iPhone

I have switched from my OnePlus One to an iPhone. The iPhone 6S Plus. The overall experience is definitely better, but that’s not what I want to talk about. I still had my LG G Watch R, so I decided to pair it with an iPhone and see how it goes.



The setup was seamless. I had the watch paired and synced in less than 10 minutes.

The issues started to show right after the setup. Of course, there are basically no 3rd party watch faces. That might not be a big deal for somebody, but I wish there were, because all the ones provided by LG are not as modern as I would like.
Then notifications started coming in. It is to be expected, that there are not many actions available, but usually, the notifications on the watch didn’t mirror ones on the phone, so I was frequently left with old notifications on the watch.


Other negative is, that you can no longer download 3rd party apps. That is understandable, but Google should at least preload all their apps into the operating system. I really liked using Google Keep on the G Watch R, but that’s not possible on iOS, which is a bit strange, because for example, Google Translate is perfectly functional.

On the positive side, Google Now and Google Voice Search work very well. Not much to add.

I noticed, that the Bluetooth connection is much more reliable with the iPhone, compared to the OnePlus One. I have experienced significantly lower number of disconnects when phone was nearby, and the range was better too. And to reconnect manually, all you have to do is press a pop-up card. The reconnect process is supposed to work automatically with Android smartphones, but sometimes, the two devices wouldn’t pair back together and the only way to troubleshoot this was to switch airplane mode on / off.

Also, it seemed like the whole operating system was a bit more fluid and stable, which is a good thing for iOS users, but shouldn’t the experience be better within the Android ecosystem? Let’s hope Google improves the overall polish in the latest updates, however, majority of the reviews of the Android Wear app on Google Play indicate otherwise. 

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