Skip to main content

Apple Watch hits 10,000 apps: How do Android Wear, Pebble, and Samsung compare?

Apple officially offers more apps for its smartwatch than Android Wear, Pebble, and Samsung’s Tizen-based Gear smartwatches. The total number of apps that were specifically built for the Apple Watch is now at 10,000, which is a huge an increase over the 1,500 apps it began with in June. Apple updated the app number at its event earlier today, where it also announced the iPad Pro, iPhone 6S, and fourth-gen Apple TV.

The sheer number of apps available for Apple Watch puts WatchOS quite far ahead of other competitors. The closest competitor in the horse race is Pebble, with more than 6,000 apps as of February 2015. Pebble might be up to 7,000 apps now, considering the time that has passed since the last update. Even so, that’s still behind Apple’s numbers.

Recommended Videos

Even worse, Pebble started its store on Feb 2014, so it had a year head start on the Apple Watch. The launch of Android Wear and WatchOS has slowed the amount of developer attention on the Pebble Time and Pebble Time Steel, meaning the gap is only going to increase unless Pebble makes a big announcement in the near future.

Samsung comes second in the race with 6,000 apps, if you combine the 1,000 apps available for the Gear S2 and 5,000 other Gear apps. The original Gear was one of the most popular smartwatches, with more than one million sales. The Gear S2 seems equally popular, considering the strong reception by consumers at IFA 2015 — we even gave it an award for best wearable at the event.

Finally, Android Wear comes in last place with 4,000 apps as of Google I/O. We doubt those numbers have shot up since May, considering that Samsung has dropped Android Wear in favor of Tizen, and sales from other providers have been below average.

Google has the most smartwatches on the market, but it has the least apps to show for it. Apple has the lowest amount of smartwatches on the market, but has the most apps to show for it. It seems like developers like the idea of a “one fits all” approach.

David Curry
Former Digital Trends Contributor
David has been writing about technology for several years, following the latest trends and covering the largest events. He is…
Best Cyber Monday Smartwatch Deals: Apple Watch, Fitbit, Galaxy Watch
Best Cyber Monday Smartwatch Deals

Cyber Monday may be over, but the best Cyber Monday deals have still stuck around. Some of the other deals we've seen  have sold out fast over the weekend, so if you spot something you like below, snap it up fast. We've rounded up some of the best Cyber Monday smartwatch deals on brands like Samsung, Fitbit, and Garmin. We've even collected some Apple deals, but if you want to read about them specifically, be sure to check out our list of the best Cyber Monday Apple Watch deals.
Best Cyber Monday Smartwatch Deals
Apple Watch SE (40mm, GPS) -- $149, was $279

When the first-generation Apple Watch SE was released in 2020, we described it as the best Apple Watch for most people. While a lot of things have changed since then, including the launch of the second-generation Apple Watch SE, the original budget Apple Watch remains a worthwhile purchase in the Cyber Monday smartwatch deals for iPhone owners who want to try what it's like to own a wearable device. The smartwatch offers comprehensive health-tracking features and responsive performance, while also providing you with notifications from your iPhone.

Read more
Digital Trends’ Top Tech of CES 2023 Awards
Best of CES 2023 Awards Our Top Tech from the Show Feature

Let there be no doubt: CES isn’t just alive in 2023; it’s thriving. Take one glance at the taxi gridlock outside the Las Vegas Convention Center and it’s evident that two quiet COVID years didn’t kill the world’s desire for an overcrowded in-person tech extravaganza -- they just built up a ravenous demand.

From VR to AI, eVTOLs and QD-OLED, the acronyms were flying and fresh technologies populated every corner of the show floor, and even the parking lot. So naturally, we poked, prodded, and tried on everything we could. They weren’t all revolutionary. But they didn’t have to be. We’ve watched enough waves of “game-changing” technologies that never quite arrive to know that sometimes it’s the little tweaks that really count.

Read more
Digital Trends’ Tech For Change CES 2023 Awards
Digital Trends CES 2023 Tech For Change Award Winners Feature

CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:

Samsung's Relumino Mode
Across the globe, roughly 300 million people suffer from moderate to severe vision loss, and generally speaking, most TVs don’t take that into account. So in an effort to make television more accessible and enjoyable for those millions of people suffering from impaired vision, Samsung is adding a new picture mode to many of its new TVs.
[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.

Read more