Google, Amazon quietly kill their Apple Watch apps

Apps like Google Maps, Amazon and eBay have quietly abandoned the Apple Watch App Store in the recent weeks without any announcement or explanation.

The trend was first spotted by AppleInsider that says that while Google pulled support for its Maps app on watchOS a few weeks ago, recent updates to the Amazon and eBay apps no longer reference support for the Apple Watch. Other affected apps include Target and TripAdvisor. A TripAdvisor thread dating back to February questioned the changes, but users said they emailed technical support and received no response.

But the point of debate is not the ending of support for the apps, rather the fact that the same went unnoticed for so long. The fact that these high-profile removals have gone largely unnoticed could be a sign that the apps simply were not widely used. This would theoretically explain why developers may have thought it was best to discontinue support.

After all, shopping on apps like Target, eBay, and Amazon on your wrist is probably not ideal. As for Google Maps, Google reportedly told Apple Insider it plans to add Apple Watch support for its Google Maps app again in the future.

While official sales figures for the Apple watch aren't available, but analysts estimate that they're increasingly disappointing. Last October, IDC estimated that Apple shipped 1.1 million Apple Watches in the third quarter of 2016, which was down 71.6 percent from the year-ago period.