Unless you were living under a rock last night, you’d be aware that the embargo on Apple Watch reviews dropped and the internet was flooded with what seems to be a big ‘meh’ overall. Google has responded with a post on the Official Android blog reminding you just how much you can personalise your Android Wear device both in terms of watch faces and bands.
The post points out that there are now over 1,000 Android watch faces available on Google Play, with Google’s curated watch face collection on Google Play sitting at nearly 150 entries.
But it’s not just the look of your watch on the device that Google reminds you that you can change, they also point out that the majority of Android Wear watches use a standard 22mm watch strap and there is a curated range of bands available from a number of sources including – E3 Supply Co., Worn & Wound, and Clockwork Synergy.
If you have to read up on the Apple Watch – and we recommend you do, because it’s always good to check out what the competition is doing – The Verge review has quite a good looking format that’s worth checking out just to see how it looks. But before you head over there, let us know in the comments: Which watch (doesn’t have to be Android Wear) do you own, what band are you using, and which watch face?
I haven’t got one yet, but I’ve been looking very closely at the Pebble Time (soon to be released). It’s not nearly as flashy as the Google Wear options, but it has excellent battery life and just seems to be a bit better thought out and more advanced at the moment.
Was there an embargo on reviews? Does Apple have this power over the media? I knew Apple manipulated the its media coverage by banning media companies from Apple events when doing they did bad reviews but I didn’t know they had this sort of power!
Most companies embargo reviews until a certain date. Apple just has more clout to enforce their embago
I think it’s more a case of “we’ll give you this Apple watch review unit before everyone else has it for your website, as long as you don’t publish anything about it until a certain date”. Rather than power over the media. This then gets some websites to get their hands on gadgets before the general public which is good for them, and good for Apple as they get more media coverage a few days leading up to the launch.
I’m using the Moto 360, the light leather strap it came with (soon to be changed with a metallic strap) and the “Pascual” watch face which was the winner of a competition Motorola had I believe.