An Android Wear bug is preventing users from installing paid apps

It’s only been a few days since the first Android Wear apps hit Google Play, but some users have already encountered a major bug preventing them from downloading paid apps. The problem, first reported by Android Police, seems to be caused by Google’s app encryption. The way Android Wear apps are downloaded is handled differently from other Android smartphone and tablet apps. Since an Android Wear app sends notifications via its smartphone-app counterpart, watch apps are automatically downloaded to your smartwatch if you have the existing smartphone app from Google Play.

Google’s hot new item, Android Wear, is barely out of the box, but there’s already a pretty big issue deserving of a place in our Bug Watch series. The initial rush of native Android Wear apps is starting to roll into the Play Store as developers get their hands dirty with thefreshly released SDK. So far, most of these apps have been given away at no cost, but the few that have attempted to charge a fee have run into a wall. It seems that paid apps on the Play Store are incapable of installing Android Wear components to a device. Unlike most Android devices, the app installation experience for Android Wear could be described as very codependent. Instead of pulling up a bunch of Play Store listings on a screen barely larger than your thumb, Google has organized it so the apps on your phone will install their own micro-sized companions to your watch. When a regular Android app is downloaded from the Play Store, it is checked for a Wear-compatible app, which is then installed over Bluetooth to the paired watch. The process is completely automated, and aside from manually side-loading apks, it’s currently the only supported way to install apps to Wear.