SMARTWATCH APPS
You've probably heard about smartwatches that have been traveling the planet for a number of years. These are so called wearable devices. They connect to a smartphone usually via Bluetooth and have Internet access. Well but are they worth the money invested if we are talking about creating apps for smart watches? Let us turn to statistics and facts.
Smartwatch market
The smartwatch market is the most developing among all portable gadgets, and in terms of total sales only wireless headphones are ahead. In 2018, manufacturers supplied a total of 45 million smartwatches, which has never happened before. Compared to 2017, sales grew by 54%. The supply of devices increased by 48% in the first quarter of 2019. 58% of the market is held by Apple, Fossil, Fitbit and Samsung. By 2023, this indicator is expected to decrease to 47%. The reason for this is not the loss of interest of consumers, but the growth of smaller players such as Garmin, Huami and Huawei. However, Apple will be the sole market leader in the next 4 years. The company sold 22.5 million Apple Watch in just a year. Samsung is showing equally impressive results. It accounts for 11.1% of the market. Interestingly, Samsung was able to increase supplies by 127% over the year.
Popular smartwatch apps
There are many apps for smartwatches. Every day, Android Wear Center publishes new apps for watch personalizing, working with music, for organizing work with communication functions, development for health, sports and others. Despite the small size of the watch screens, there are some games for them like arcades and puzzles. And although apps that are primarily focused on collecting and analyzing indicators of daily activity, fitness and health are popular today, apps that replace some of the functions of a smartphone and thereby simplify working with them also actively used. These are various “reminders”, voice recorders, quick messaging. The vast majority of applications are dials that allow you to customize the main function – time display.
Features of smartwatch app development
This state of affairs means an inevitable increase in demand for professionals with experience in developing “hand” software. The choice, however, is the same as before: Google or Apple, Android Wear or WatchOS. As for WatchOS, the app development itself is carried out in the Xcode, which supports the Swift and Objective-C languages. In general, there is no fundamental difference with the iOS apps creation, not counting the restrictions on the components. In Android Wear there are also no other development features different from creating ordinary apps: all the same Android Studio, Java and only small features regarding the shape of the end device. Android Wear by the way can be paired with the iPhone, but it will not make any fundamental differences in the development process.
What exactly needs to be taken into account are the main differences between mobile and wearable technologies. When developing apps, the small screen size and the special nature of user interaction with the device should be taken into account. It also necessary to consider the structure of the app, the features of the user interface, the style and ability to create dials, etc. All smartwatches have one thing in common: they depend on smartphones, interacting with them using Bluetooth. This approach is used in both the Android and the iOS platforms. The interaction of smartphones and tablets with the watches at the software level is provided with the help of special related apps.
Despite the rapidly growing popularity and functionality of smart watches, they have not yet reached the level of must have devices. In particular, great hopes are associated with using them as an IoT think tank or as an identifier for gestures and facial expressions (what was expected from Google Glass), but this will require a serious expansion of capabilities and an overall increase in productivity. One way or another, this is an inevitable future that is being laid right now. Don’t miss the chance to catch a trend wave.
