Fewer Than 25% Of Android Phones Will Work With Google's New Smartwatches

Steve Kovach/Business InsiderAt its developer conference Wednesday, Google announced several new Android Wear smartwatches.

Business Insider's Steve Kovach thought they are too much like having your smartphone on your wrist, but even if you did want one, chances are your phone wouldn't be compatible.

All of the Android Wear smartwatches only work with Android 4.3 and on. TechCrunch points out that only 23.9% of active Android smartphones are currently running software new enough to work with one of the new smartwatches.

On the one hand, 23.9% is a pretty lousy percentage. On the other hand, probably the only people who would consider buying a new Google smartwatch are ones who care about having the latest technology, meaning they are using Android 4.4 anyway.

This has been a consistent problem with Android devices. Whenever Google releases a new version of the operating system, it takes manufacturers like Samsung, HTC, Motorola, etc. several months to adopt the software to their phones. That's because manufacturers like to modify Android with their own user interfaces and special features.

Often, many Android phones never get a new version, which is why the vast majority of devices in the wild are running outdated software.

Google's counter argument to that is it is able to update Google Play services on over 90% of phones. That means even if most Android users are running old versions of the operating system, services like Gmail, Google Maps, and Google search are up to date.