Android wearables have a chicken and egg problem. Manufacturers aren't innovating because nobody is buying and nobody is buying because there are no innovations.

Apple is fully vertically integrated so it can recoup the high R&D costs for new silicon and other components through the price of the unit but on Android platforms you have separate manufacturers for the vital components who are under pressure to be cost competitive as they don't get a slice of the profits of the final product so they won't invest in R&D until they see enough consumer demand which isn't there.

If Apple Watch hadn’t been an immediate success, I’d like to think they’d still be pushing hard to make it so.

Most of its competitors have far more offerings with much less commitment behind any one of them.

Apple Watch wasn't an immediate success - at least not in the form we see it today. WatchOS 1.0 was dramatically different from what we have today, with much less focus on health and more focus on 'connecting you with people' and stuff.

Apple kept working at it, paring out the stuff that wasn't useful (the side button was originally dedicated to a list of contacts to send messages to for example), and doubled down on the stuff that was (health). Clearly it has worked...

[1]: https://1reddrop.com/2019/01/07/apple-watch-sales-history-fr...

edit: Apparently the Samsung Galaxy Watch series are Tizen, not Android

Regular quartz watches can go 3-10 years between battery replacements. Solar charging can increase that to 20 years or more. Self-winding mechanical watches will last a lifetime as long as you wear them regularly and have them serviced every now and then. How long does a modern smartwatch last in comparison?

Doubt it. Apple watch is already a bigger business than netflix - the battery life is perfectly sufficient and making it longer would involve making it less capable.