- Pebble smartwatch founder Eric Migicovsky takes a swipe at Apple
- In a blog post, Migicovsky highlighted the challenges of getting Pebble OS working on iPhones
- He encourages Pebble-curious iOS users to take action
The big news getting fans of the best smartwatches talking this week has been the return of one of the OG smartwatch brands – Pebble.
As original founder Eric Migicovsky unveiled two new watches – the black-and-white Core 2 Duo and the color touchscreen Core Time 2, both running the open-source Pebble OS – he highlighted frustrations with getting the watches working properly with iOS.
In a blog post titled ‘Apple restricts Pebble from being awesome with iPhones’, Migicovsky said: “We will build a good app for iOS, but be prepared – there is no way for us to support all the functionality that Apple Watch has access to.
“It’s impossible for a 3rd party smartwatch to send text messages, or perform actions on notifications (like dismissing, muting, replying) and many, many other things.”
Migicovsky talks about the workarounds he used in Pebble’s heyday, such as publishing a software development kit that third-party apps like Strava used to act as a go-between.
However, he acknowledged its limitations, calling it a “clunky quasi-solution” and stated that things are harder than ever now due to Apple’s practice of ensuring its phones only really work with the best Apple Watches, in a closed-loop ecosystem.
“Apple systematically makes it nearly impossible for 3rd party wearable developers to build a smartwatch experience comparable to Apple Watch experience”, writes Migicovsky. “Apple claims their restrictions on competitors are only about security, privacy, crafting a better experience etc etc. At least that’s what they tell you as they tuck you into bed.
“I personally don’t agree – they’re clearly using their market power to lock consumers into their walled ecosystem. This causes there to be less competition, which increases prices and reduces innovation.”
Migicovsky recommends iPhone users interested in Pebble OS watches complain to their elected officials, supporting legislation like the ACCESS Act in the US and the Digital Markets Act in Europe.
Analysis: *Surprised Pikachu face*
The closed loop in which Apple devices work best with each other has been Apple’s MO for a very long time, and thanks to the company’s sizeable market share, that’s not going to go away anytime soon.
This information is frustrating to Pebble users and Migicovsky’s new Core Devices company alike, but anyone expecting an experience on Pebble comparable to the one you get on Apple Watch was always going to be disappointed.
It would be nice if things were based more on the principles on which much of ‘old internet’ was founded: open-source, hackable, customizable, and community-orientated; but unfortunately that’s not the world we live in today. Our Editor-at-Large Lance Ulanoff penned a piece detailing why he believes opening up iOS is a bad idea, and Apple will certainly resist any pushback.
Nevertheless, it would be cool to see these Pebble OS issues get at least partially resolved, so that the Core 2 Duo and Core Time 2 have an opportunity to make it onto our best smartwatches for iPhone list.
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