What the market says is irrelevant, the fact is that Samsung has had BT 4.0- LTE in their phones since months ago and some devices are compatibles with them like Fitbit and some heart rate devices
I repeat, if 4.3 was a dependency and 4.3 was compatible just for having the 4.0 BT LTS stack Nexus 4, Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 7 (both 2012 and 2013) or Nexus 10 would have been compatible but they are not compatible with the gear
So yes, the fragmentation thing in this case isjust ********
Funny you should say that. It's much much messier than you made it out to be.
http://developer.samsung.com/forum/board/thread/view.do?boardName=GeneralB&messageId=157757
https://github.com/cjhuo/Android-Samsung-Ble-APIs-Bluez
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11311947/how-to-use-broadcom-ble-sdk-smart-4-0-in-android-4-x
If I recall correctly, as it's been a while since it was relevant to me...
Samsung refused to publish how to make BTLE work on the S3 in pre-4.2, because they didn't want people to know it's using a hacked up stack that Google already planned to abandon in 4.2.
Motorola made their own BTLE API.
Fitbit (and that cjhuo guy) made it work on the S3 using HTC's (old) SDK, which similarly also hacked up the bluez stack.
Google abandoned bluez for Broadcom's BlueDroid, but doesn't fully complete the BTLE API.
Broadcom provides a BTLE API for BlueDroid, but only to licensees.
HTC had to make their own BTLE API because some of their chips use Broadcom some use other companies, therefore can't include Broadcom's BTLE API.
Fitbit then had to release a new app to work with the S4 because the S4 uses Android 4.2, which has the BlueDroid stack + Broadcom's BTLE API.
Google builds in a BTLE API for Android 4.3. Not sure if it's compatible with Broadcom's 4.2 API, but from what I heard, probably not.
If somebody's looking for a facepalm fragmentation moment, here you go:
Any BTLE app that worked in Android 4.0/4.1 will face one or more of the following:
1) break support for Android 4.0/4.1 in their next update
2) need to write in support for 4.2 using Motorola's BTLE APIs. Or fail for those phones.
3) need to write in support for 4.2 using HTC's BTLE APIs. Or fail for those phones.
4) need to write in support for 4.2 using Broadcom's BTLE APIs. (and only be supported on specific phones with Broadcom licences) Or fail for those phones.
5) need to write in support for 4.3 using Google's BTLE APIs. Or fail in 4.3.
So to complete support, they'd have to include up to 5 BTLE stack interfaces that do roughly the same thing and continue to write support for all of them until they decide to abandon some users. HTC's already put out a release telling devs to abandon their own BTLE APIs and migrate to 4.3's.
I suspect Samsung's done the same too. Problem is, if those phones don't get a 4.3 update, those users are simply gone.
No wonder the Cuckoo smartwatch people delayed Android support for half a year, and then started development of 2 separate apps solely to target 2 different stacks (Samsung & Broadcom).
For more pissed-off people see here:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/android-platform/CYtxCmtZ-WI
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects...tch-for-the-connected-generation/posts/352332
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cuckoo/cookootm-the-watch-for-the-connected-generation/posts
https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=58725
http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/26105/determining-support-for-bluetooth-low-energy
As for the Galaxy Gear compatibility, there is no question that 4.3 is a dependency. But 4.3 isn't the only dependency. An app has to be written that knows how to talk to the Galaxy Gear AND the phone's BTLE stack. Therefore, Nexus device support also depends on whether or not Samsung feels like tying Galaxy Gear support to TouchWiz.
