14 DAY TRIAL // In a recent interview, Head of Sony Mobile in the US explained the company won't be looking at Android Wear when it comes to its wearable products.
Last week, Google made headlines with the launch of its own dedicated OS for wearables, Android Wear. The new OS has the potential to deeply affect the budding wearable industry and some brand vendors have already rushed to announce they were jumping onboard with Google with this endeavor.
Among the official partners we found HTC, LG and Motorola and the latter two have already announced they are going to launch smartwatches running the platform.
But other brand vendors are apparently resisting the temptation to do business with Android Wear. And a good example of that is Sony. After talking to the head of Sony Mobile US, Ravi Nookala, CNET reports the company won’t be using the Google dedicated wearable OS, but will persist in maintaining its own modified version of Android designed for smartwatches.
“We’ve alreadyinvested time and resources on this platform, and we will continue in that direction.”
So there you have it, if you were high on hopes Sony will be integrating Android Wear into their SmartWatch products, it appears this will not be the case. Good news is that there’s going to be plenty of Android Wear watches to choose form, though.
Sony actually made one of the first smartwatches to ever appear on the market, even before Samsung made a big fuss and introduced the original Galaxy Gear that for some reason is deemed to be the Adam or Eve of smartwatches.
But Sony’s SmartWatch has created its own niche, so it might make sense for the company is using a different route than other Android Wear smartwatch makers, like Motorola and LG.
Notably, even Samsung is attempting to distance itself from Android. The Korean tech giant has dropped Google’s OS in favor of its own Tizen OS platform with its latest Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo.
Samsung has slammed the door shut in front of Android, whereas Sony is taking a particularly dangerous route, as it will still be using Android, but enjoying the liberties of pre-loading its own set of applications.
Sony currently has available the original SmartWatch, SmartWatch 2 and SmartBand fitness tracker, which will work in concert with the SmartWatch and a dedicated LifeLog app.
Nookala mentioned the LifeLog app would be a recurrent theme in future smartwatch endeavors coming out of the company. The company official also made a point in highlighting Sony and Google are still working in close proximity together and there’s no bad blood against the two.