4 ms·

I would be more concerned about this if the competition in this space was not so disappointing this far. I think there are good smartwatches in the Android spac

I would be more concerned about this if the competition in this space was not so disappointing this far. I think there are good smartwatches in the Android space, but none of them are great, and none of them have challenged the Apple Watch in terms of feature set and quality. And Apple hasn’t sat on its laurels here. They keep making the watch a more desirable device. To me, it seems like they know they can get people to consider switching if they want the watch. And the market keeps rewarding them. I had a Moto360 early on and loved it. It was a competitor to the Apple Watch only by virtue of being an electronic watch. It would be nice if Apple would make the watch accessible to people without iPhones. I would certainly believe their rhetoric about the importance of health tech if they did that.

darknavi 4y ago
> think there are good smartwatches in the Android space, but none of them are great How much of that is limited by the API that Google is surfacing? Watches simply cannot compete with an Apple Watch because Apple doesn't surface the same functionality for any other device.
JadeNB 4y ago
> I would be more concerned about this if the competition in this space was not so disappointing this far. Why does less competition make you less concerned about anti-competitive behavior? Such behavior is never good, but it's self-correcting in a market with lots of choice, and not so in a market where there's only one great option (a judgment for which I have to take your word—a Casio F-91W is the right level of watch technology for me).
- sircastor 4y ago
  Anti-competitive behavior is absolutely bad, no question, but the problem doesn't come across to me as Apple pushing competitors out of the market. It feels like other Smartwatch makers don't care to match the feature set or don't care to do it as well as Apple. When viewing market from an ecosystem point-of-view, there aren't comparable pairings of Android-phone-with-wearOS-Watch to iPhone-with-Apple-Watch. There are similar pairings: Samsung's watch products with Samsung phones, and the Pixel Watch with a Pixel phone. But are either of those comprehensive in their respective ecosystems? My point is, nobody seems to be fighting for this market except Apple. I could just be naive here, but it doesn't seem like anyone else cares enough for Apple to be anti-competitive.
  - JadeNB 4y ago
    > My point is, nobody seems to be fighting for this market except Apple. I could just be naive here, but it doesn't seem like anyone else cares enough for Apple to be anti-competitive. You're right; I used the term "anti-competitive behavior", but that was the wrong word for what I was trying to say. I meant rather the lazy behavior of an established giant that doesn't have to compete, and so is content to let standards slip since they can be reasonably confident that it won't lose them any, or many, customers.

darknavi 4y ago

> think there are good smartwatches in the Android space, but none of them are great How much of that is limited by the API that Google is surfacing? Watches simply cannot compete with an Apple Watch because Apple doesn't surface the same functionality for any other device.

JadeNB 4y ago

> I would be more concerned about this if the competition in this space was not so disappointing this far. Why does less competition make you less concerned about anti-competitive behavior? Such behavior is never good, but it's self-correcting in a market with lots of choice, and not so in a market where there's only one great option (a judgment for which I have to take your word—a Casio F-91W is the right level of watch technology for me).

sircastor 4y ago
Anti-competitive behavior is absolutely bad, no question, but the problem doesn't come across to me as Apple pushing competitors out of the market. It feels like other Smartwatch makers don't care to match the feature set or don't care to do it as well as Apple. When viewing market from an ecosystem point-of-view, there aren't comparable pairings of Android-phone-with-wearOS-Watch to iPhone-with-Apple-Watch. There are similar pairings: Samsung's watch products with Samsung phones, and the Pixel Watch with a Pixel phone. But are either of those comprehensive in their respective ecosystems? My point is, nobody seems to be fighting for this market except Apple. I could just be naive here, but it doesn't seem like anyone else cares enough for Apple to be anti-competitive.
- JadeNB 4y ago
  > My point is, nobody seems to be fighting for this market except Apple. I could just be naive here, but it doesn't seem like anyone else cares enough for Apple to be anti-competitive. You're right; I used the term "anti-competitive behavior", but that was the wrong word for what I was trying to say. I meant rather the lazy behavior of an established giant that doesn't have to compete, and so is content to let standards slip since they can be reasonably confident that it won't lose them any, or many, customers.