iPhone Works With Moto 360: Hack Allows Notifications from iPhone to Moto 360 Android Wear

Virginia D'Cruz Wednesday, February 25, 2015

While getting notifications from your iPhone to smartwatches such as the Moto 360, which run on Android Wear, is still not legally possible, one enterprising developer has created a workaround. This resulted in a successful hack using ANCS technology, allowing notifications to be pushed from an iPhone to a Moto 360.

Smartwatches from Pebble already work with both iOS and Android devices. A developer named Mohammad Abu-Garbeyyeh utilized the same application programming interfaces, or APIs, that Pebble uses and got the hack to work. Using the Apple Notification Center Service, or ANSC, and APIs, Abu-Garbeyyeh was able to send notifications from his iPhone to his Moto 360 watch.

It is clear from the description of the API that ANCS provides Bluetooth accessories "a simple and convenient way to access many kinds of notifications that are generated on iOS devices." This is what Abu-Garbeyyeh used to get the notification feature to work.

Abu-Garbeyyeh provided details about the hack in a YouTube video which he posted to prove that it is working. Taking the video into account, many news outlets have reported that there was no jailbreaking or rooting involved in the hack. However, the developer did not provide the code he used.

The Wearable tech news site pointed out that although the hack was a success, access to Google Now and other support for apps did not become available. Other than the iPhone notifications being displayed on the smartwatch, the other functions of the watch were not affected.

The successful hack was deemed important because previously iOS did not work with Android Wear devices. However, a number of hacks have successfully been done on Android Wear devices in the past few months, including putting Windows 95 and Minecraft onto Samsung Gear Live.

With the Apple Watch slated for release in April, it is unlikely that Apple is going to invest in cross platform support even though Google might be interested in exploring the possibility.