Have an iPhone, but want to use an Android Wear watch? Too bad! Google and Apple are focusing their smartwatch efforts on their own platforms for now, with all signs pointing to them avoiding cross-platform friendliness for as long as possible.
Fortunately, the world has talented modders who can make things right. Here’s a video of the world’s first iPhone-to-Android-Wear connection, no jailbreak required.
MohammadAG, the prolific developer behind many an Android mod, has managed to get notifications to send from iOS to a Moto 360.
The crazy part? Though MohammadAG’s iPhone is jailbroken (note the bouncing message icon on his phone — that’s a jailbreak trick), no jailbreaking is required to make this work.
Instead, MohammadAG says the mod relies on the same ANCS protocol that the Pebble watch uses, which has been built into the iPhone since the release of iOS 7. A custom APK runs on the watch, listening for notifications. This solution limits iOS-to-Android-Wear compatibility to just basic notification support — but it’s a start, right?
Alas, MohammadAG has yet to release the watch app to the public, so this is a one-off thing for now.