Samsung looking to open Gear S2 to iOS after adding support for non-Samsung Android devices
Exclusive: Move over Android Wear, Samsung has confirmed it's looking at Gear S2 iPhone support — Run an iPhone 6 but covet the new Samsung Gear S2 smartwatch?
Context & Ripple Effects
Samsung's round smartwatch has been positioned as a flagship since the Gear A two-variant leak and the September 3 unveiling teased by The Verge, but it launched as a Samsung-phone accessory. The company then widened the funnel once, adding support for non-Samsung Android devices, and is now confirming it is looking at iPhone support as well.
That matters because the follow-through is already on record: by January 2017 Samsung had shipped the Gear S and Gear Fit apps on iOS, making Gear S2, Gear S3, and Gear Fit 2 work with iPhones — evidence that this was strategy, not trial balloon.
First-order effects
- If iPhone support lands, the Gear S2's addressable market jumps from Samsung and non-Samsung Android owners to include Apple's installed base, with no new hardware required — just a companion app.
Second-order effects
- Cross-platform watches put feature parity in play: Samsung Pay on the Gear S2 already works only on Bluetooth models and NFC terminals per Droid Life's report, and each platform Samsung opens raises the question of which services travel with the device versus stay locked to Galaxy phones.
- Android Wear's pitch as the neutral multi-vendor watch platform loses differentiation if a rival's Tizen-based wearable courts the same iPhone buyers.
Third-order effects
- Wearables are decoupling from the phone maker's handset ecosystem: the durable unit becomes the watch-plus-service relationship, and lock-in shifts from 'which phone do you own' to 'which watch account you keep.'
- If Samsung sustains the pattern — open the accessory, port the services — regulators and platform holders face growing pressure over whether Apple's iOS gates third-party wearables as broadly as Android does.
The trend: Smartwatch makers are converting ecosystem-locked phone accessories into cross-platform devices, using companion-app releases instead of new hardware to chase rival installed bases.