Motorola's Moto 360, the first round-face Android Wear smart watch, is coming next month and we could see our first glimpse of
Early smart watches like the Pebble and Samsung's Galaxy Gear were drastically limited in their functionality, but with the introduction of Android Wear, a platform dedicated to moving wearable potential forward that's backed by
The Moto 360 promises to add some much needed style and elegance to the wear lineup with its round face, steel case and designer-quality interchangeable bands. The specs for the Moto 360 leaked on
Motorola doesn't tend to wow with hardware specs, however. Its last flagship Android phone, the Moto X, has become something of a cult favorite based on the strength of software features like touchless control and the ability to detect when a user is driving and automatically read incoming texts aloud or start up some driving music. It's possible we'll see some similar novel feature that works on the Moto 360 and the expected successor to the Moto X, also expected next month.
Less seems certain about the Apple iWatch, which has been the subject of a ferocious rumor mill for the past year, but the company showcased a few new efforts at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June that could point to smart watch integration. Healthkit and Home Kit, in particular, are new parts of the upcoming iOS 8 that seem to telegraph the existence of an incoming iOS wearable.
Whenever Apple finally unveils a smart watch, it is likely to suck all the air out of the room, at least for an instant. When the dust settles the Moto 360 is likely to be the only other smart watch on the market with the chops to battle it out against Cupertino's first wearable. With little room for either company to wow us with hardware, it's likely to come down to which side has the most well-executed software.
So perhaps we shouldn't be gearing up for the smart watch wars per se, but for the opening of a new front on the war between Android and iOS.
