Smartwatch manufacturer Pebble announced on Monday that its flagship device Pebble Time will receive a new update that will improve its current voice control features. The new update will allow iPhone users to reply to incoming text messages through their smartwatches.

The update will be exclusive to the iOS platform. The feature that Pebble is integrating into iOS has been on the Android platform for quite some time already. Tech experts said that the update comes just in time since the new iPhone was only released recently.

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According to The Verge, the iOS platform restricts third-party access into its system. Additionally, the platform does not allow the same access to its messaging platform, unlike the Apple Watch. In order to circumvent this restriction, Pebble routes the responses directly through a wireless carrier instead of passing it through the iPhone Messages app.

This means that the new Pebble Time feature is only available to AT&T post-paid customers at the moment. Moreover, messages sent from the Pebble Time smartwatch will not appear on the Messages app of the iPhone.

The feature also does not work with group messages. Pebble says that it is currently working on supporting other carriers aside from AT&T. The company did not provide a timeline regarding when it plans to release the update to support other networks.

Most smartwatches that are currently available in the market, aside from the Apple Watch, do not have any feature to enable users reply to messages.

Pebble said that the new message reply feature will be rolled out to the Pebble Time, Time Steel, or Time Round. The smartwatches must be synced with an iPhone and must be using the AT&T network for the feature to work.

If users meet all the above mentioned requirements, they still need to upgrade the firmware version of their smartwatch to version 3.7. The Pebble app on the iPhone also needs to be upgraded to version 3.4, according to Forbes.

TagsPebble Time, Pebble Time iOS, Pebble Time smartwatch, smartwatch, Pebble iOS, Pebble iPhone, Pebble Text Message, Pebble Time Text message