Samsung explains how difficult it was to bring the Gear S to market

The Gear S is an interesting smartwatch to say the least. It has a curved super AMOLED display, and features 3G/2G connectivity, not to mention a full QWERTY keyboard. Packing all of this into a smartwatch wasn’t easy as Samsung explains.

The obvious factor here is that smartwatches are a lot smaller than smartphones so you can imagine trying to fit extra components in it. 3G/2G connectivity isn’t something that you see on other smartwatches, but Samsung wanted to be the first. Who cares if you really need it or not! Anyways, Samsung explains that they needed to use their own relay server to facilitate forwarding notifications from smartphones to the Gear S.

While the Gear Fit sports a curved display, the Gear S was a little more difficult since it’s more like a smartphone. Finding the right size that also offered the proper balance of usability and wearability wasn’t easy. They also knew that a display smaller than 2-inches wouldn’t work especially with a keyboard.
It amazes me how much time Samsung spends on products like this. They continue to try to push their own ecosystem, but they would likely achieve more success if they would just actually embrace Android. I might actually consider the Gear S if it was Android Wear compatible, but why would I buy something that only works with Samsung devices. Samsung can’t be Apple unless they truly offer something unique. You see, iOS phones are only made by Apple. Android phones are made by many manufacturers. Samsung can’t pull off what Apple does since there are other Android phones available.
source: Samsung Tomorrow