You know how we’ve been hearing for a while that Google would be supporting iOS with its Android Wear app pretty soon? Well that might not happen. We’re seeing that a lot of iOS apps that are declaring support for Pebble’s smartwatch are now being rejected from the App Store. So Google’s Android Wear will probably see the same thing.
According to Apple’s updated developer agreement, it forbids app descriptions as well as metadata from mentioning “any other mobile platform”.
“We noticed that your app or its metadata contains irrelevant platform information in the app. Providing future platform compatibility plans, or other platform references, is not appropriate for the App Store. Specifically, your app and app description declare support for the Pebble Smartwatch.”
This isn’t affecting just new apps, but also old apps that have supported Pebble for years. Which means this is Apple trying to protect their Apple Watch ecosystem. But what does this have to do with Android? Well it’s Android Wear. There was a report that Google was working on releasing Android Wear for iOS. Now we already knew that Apple doesn’t allow anything into the App Store that has the word “Android” in it. Which goes along with the fact they can’t mention “Any other mobile platform”, so that makes sense. But now that they are blocking apps from supporting Pebble, we’d find it hard to believe that Google could get their Android Wear companion app into the App Store.
Guess you can pretty much kiss good bye support for Android Wear on iOS. Unless somehow Google works something out with Apple to get their app into the App Store. Which I wouldn’t be surprised if they did do. Unlike with Android, on iOS, it’s not as easy to sideload apps. With Android if an app or game isn’t in the Play Store, you can simply download the APK and install it manually on your device. When it comes to iOS, that’s not possible. Even with Jailbreak, it’s pretty tough to do. So don’t hold your breath for Android Wear on iOS.