Dan Ness, Principal Analyst, MetaFacts, November 19, 2020
The Smartphone-smartwatch connection
Smartwatches offer the promise to extend the user’s experiences. Most are tightly coupled with a smartphone and its ecosystem. We looked into whether smartwatch user’s behaviors are different between iPhones and Android smartphones. Drilling into the MetaFacts TUP/Technology User Profile 2020 results, showed there is not only a gap between OS but also between countries.
iPhones for communication
Where Apple Watch users use their iPhones more so than Android smartphone users focuses most broadly on communication activities. Text messaging, phone calling, and video calling stand out stronger across the four countries surveyed. Most of these activities are integrated to some degree with Apple Watch, except for video calls since the Apple Watch does not include a video camera (at least not currently).
Androids for fun and words
Android smartphone users with Android Wear are very distinctive from the iPhone/Apple Watch crowd in their behavior. Many of their uniquely-strong smartphone activities are centered around entertainment, from playing games to reading, commenting on blogs to writing reviews.
Looking ahead
Apple has continued to dominate the smartwatch market, leading others in its share of the active installed base. By supporting its customer’s major activities with smoother integrations between devices and services in and outside of its ecosystem, it encourages existing customers to consider and add even more of Apple’s offerings. To the extent Google Wear OS smartwatch makers can focus on their customer’s behaviors and needs, they may offer stronger competition to Apple. Even better, such a user-based approach might spark the development of many types of new successful wearables.
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