Wearable devices are important considering the rapid advancement of technology. Wearable development provides a great opportunity for both entrepreneurs and various businesses. Considered the fuel of the wearable tech market, wearable applications are gaining popularity quite rapidly.
However, unlike usual mobile applications, wearable apps are expected to show functionalities that are more creative and unique. For example, think of a tracker app that keeps track of the calories burned regularly using a Smartwatch.
Let’s see what these apps are.
What are wearable apps?
Before we dig in to understand what wearable apps are, we must understand what wearable technology is. Wearable devices can be worn by the user as an accessory or part of other materials like clothing. These devices connect to the internet either directly or with the help of a Smartphone, and perform various functions altogether.
All the functions are driven by applications that are fed into these devices, and these applications are known as wearable apps. These apps have access to the hardware like device’s sensors, receivers, etc. Wearable apps collect data from the hardware and take the help from the network they are connected to, to produce the desired output. The output produced is displayed using the device itself.
Depending on the platform these wearable apps run on or are compatible with, the input is taken and the result is displayed. If the wearable device can accept input and display the result all by itself, any platform can be chosen, like Android, iOS, or even Windows. Thus, iOS App developers and Android App Developers would be needed along with a wearable app development service, depending on which operating system you want the device to be compatible with.
These apps look similar to regular apps, but have a huge difference in a few key areas.
How Do Wearable Apps Differ From Smartphone Apps?
Functionality
Since the hardware of wearable devices is small and less powerful, it poses some limitations to the functionalities of a wearable app. On the other hand, since smartphones have undergone rapid advancement, the limitations are quite less for conventional apps.
User Interaction
While regular mobile apps are built for better user interaction, wearable apps lack to provide that. They work on collecting data and displaying output with little or no user interaction. There are very few apps that require user input.
Device Specificity
Since wearable applications use APIs specific to the device, it cannot be used for other devices or platforms. As of today, the same wearable app cannot be used on other devices. Mobile apps, on the other hand, have the ease of being able to run on different platforms and models of mobile phones.
However, the wearable development cycle is similar to developing a mobile app. Only a good wearable app development service having the proper expertise in this field would be able to develop such apps.
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