Multiple Android Wear smartwatches including Tag Heuer, Moto 360 v2, ASUS ZenWatch are unable to pair with iPhone 7; Google reported issue to Apple a week ago
Ben Schoon / 9to5Mac :
Context & Ripple Effects
Android Wear's iPhone story was built deliberately: Google spent 2015 getting a companion app onto iOS and then shipped the Android Wear app for iPhone 5 and later that August, opening Apple's installed base to every watch maker in the program — including Tag Heuer, whose Intel-powered luxury watch launched weeks after the iOS bridge went live.
The pairing failure on iPhone 7 severs exactly that bridge, and it lands on a category already retreating: two weeks earlier, LG, Huawei, and Motorola confirmed no new Android Wear watches for fall 2016, citing thin customer enthusiasm. Google has escalated to Apple directly, reporting the issue about a week ago — meaning the fix now sits entirely in Apple's hands.
First-order effects
- iPhone 7 upgraders who own a Tag Heuer Connected, Moto 360 v2, or ASUS ZenWatch lose watch functionality on day one of their new phone, since the watches cannot pair at all.
- Google's only lever is the bug report it filed with Apple roughly a week ago; until Apple ships a fix, the Android Wear-for-iOS value proposition Google built in 2015 is effectively suspended for new iPhone buyers.
Second-order effects
- The breakage hits hardest at the premium end Tag Heuer bet on — a luxury Android Wear watch marketed partly on iPhone compatibility loses its second-largest addressable market while Apple Watch faces no equivalent constraint.
- With LG, Huawei, and Motorola already pausing new hardware for fall 2016, vendors weighing another Android Wear generation now have one more reason to doubt the iOS channel Google promised them.
Third-order effects
- If Apple is slow to fix a competitor's accessory compatibility on its own hardware, it reinforces the structural lesson of this cycle: third-party smartwatch ecosystems live or die by the phone maker's tolerance, pushing wearables toward vertically integrated pairs like Apple Watch plus iPhone.
- A prolonged standoff would confirm what the fall-2016 hardware pause hinted — that Android Wear's cross-platform strategy cannot survive friction controlled by Apple, narrowing the category to Android-only reach.
The trend: Smartwatch platforms are consolidating around vertically integrated phone-watch pairs, leaving cross-platform efforts like Android Wear dependent on the gatekeeper's goodwill.