Apple Watch Vs Android Wear: 7 major differences to check out

By Harshita

| Published: Monday, November 9, 2015, 17:17 [IST]

The much coveted Apple Watch is finally officially available in India. However, it costs a bomb at price starting from Rs 34,000, for the basic model. At such a premium price point, many of those who wished to buy an Apple Watch must have been left disappointed. Nevertheless, the Watch being priced so high now those of you wish to buy a wearable might now want to go for an Android Wear.

Here we give seven major differences between the Apple Watch OS and the Android Wear OS, which would help you chose the better one for yourself.

Apple Pay support

One of the key features of Apple Watch is that it supports Apple Pay service which let users make payments with NFC using their smartwatch. Android Wear, on the other hand, is yet not compatible with such a payment option.

Android Wear is an open platform

Google's Android Wear OS is an open platform which is available for host of hardware partners. Apple's software feature for Watch, on the other hand, is exclusive to the Watch, as it has been design for Apple products.

Compatibility

The Apple Watch works only with the iPhone whereas an Android Wear timepiece can be paired with Android as well as iPhone.

GPS vs No GPS

Apple Watch does have feature to take care of yourr health and fitness, but for that it has to be paired with an iPhone. The Apple Watch can't exactly be used independently for tracking fitness considering that it does not have GPS for tracking user's steps or other activities. On the other hand, considering that Android Wear is an open platform, it depends on hardware provider whether the wearable supports tracking or not. However, most Android Wear smartwatches are GPS enabled and can track step, sleep and heart rate, and more.

Interface:

Both the Appe Watch and the Android Wear based wearable have a completely different interface which results in a difference user-experience. For those who have used both iOS and Android on smartphones and tablets then you will get an idea of how their interfaces would vary. Moreover, Apple Watch is all about premium look and feel, whereas you will get different experience on different Android Wear based wearables.

App stock

Both the platforms are store to thousands of apps, which make them equally competitive. Apple Watch gives developers ability to create notifications as well as quick glances to their apps, on the other hand, Android Wear supports notifications from any app, and allows developers to choose to build apps more interactive.

Price:

This is a major factor that differentiates the Android Wear wearable from Apple Watch, which is priced much higher than even the premium Android Wear time pieces.