Android developer has found a way to get Android Wear to work with an iPhone

By Jason Hahn Published February 22, 2015

An Android developer has figured out a way to get Android Wear, the wearable-friendly version of Android, to work with an iPhone. While functionality is limited, the workaround pushes notifications from iOS to an Android Wear smartwatch without any jailbreaking required.

To achieve this solution, Mohammad Abu-Garbeyyeh, better known as MohammadAG on XDA, uses the Apple Notification Center Service (ANCS) iOS feature, which gives Bluetooth accessories “a simple and convenient way to access many kinds of notifications that are generated on iOS devices,” according to the ANCS page in Apple’s iOS Developer Library.

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While Pebble smartwatches leverage ANCS to play nice with iOS devices, Android Wear smartwatches don’t support iOS devices, though an Android Wear product manager recently left the door open to such compatibility in the future.

Abu-Garbeyyeh created an Android application package (APK) to run on the Android Wear smartwatch (in this case a Moto 360) and enable it to receive iOS notifications via ANCS. If the APK were to become open-sourced, it would make Android Wear smartwatches compatible with Apple devices running iOS 7 or higher without the need to do any jailbreaking.

This workaround doesn’t open up full Android Wear functionality. While notifications can be received on the Android Wear smartwatch, taking actions from the smartwatch won’t be possible.

iPhone owners who want a compatible Android Wear smartwatch without all this “hacking” may want to wait for HTC’s first wearable device, codenamed PETRA. The device is expected to work with Android (4.4 and up) and iOS (iOS 7 and up) devices.

[Image courtesy of simone mescolini/Shutterstock]

Former Contributor

Jason Hahn is a part-time freelance writer based in New Jersey. He earned his master's degree in journalism at Northwestern…

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