When it comes to Android Wear, one of the best things about the platform is the ability to switch out and customize the look of the watchface display so you can make the watch a little more unique. You can swap things out every once in a while or you can switch things up daily to suit your taste and match your outfits. With as much out there as there is at this point the options are seemingly endless. There are even a handful of watchfaces that are designed after the watchfaces from luxury watch brands like Omega, Cartier, Rolex, Aviator and more that give your Android Wear smartwatch a little more flare.
Those luxury watch faces may not last too long though as the luxury watch brands are reportedly attempting to crack down on having these designs out there for the general public without buying one of the actual watches. This isn’t too surprising since the watchface designs that mimic their true luxury brand watches can be considered intellectual property, and it obviously doesn’t sit too well with those brands to have their designs available as a digital watchface for $0.99, the average cost for one of these custom designs on the Play Store. With takedown requests supposedly being sent out by luxury brands like Omega, Tissot and others, it shouldn’t be too long before we see Google issue a removal of those watchface apps from the Play Store due to policy violation.
You’ll still likely be able to gather those designs elsewhere of course, and a number of people who already have the apps installed will simply be able to share the apk around. According to the sources, the brands issuing requests for takedowns of these designs are more than likely not worried about sales. Rather they want to make sure that people know they won’t tolerate copyright infringement. This makes perfect sense, since counterfeit watches of these luxury brands are a very real issue for them that actually do dip into their sales pockets, which extends far past a simple free watchface design for a smartwatch. This is a tad different than your usual case of digital content piracy, but we suppose this is just another step from big name companies who want to do everything they can to protect their intellectual property rights. As cool as some of these watchfaces are, we really don’t blame them.