Well, I wouldn't say that the standards for (software) security were anywhere near as high as they are now. It makes sense that our requirements for things change.
> It's very, very, very, hard to believe there's 0 way for Apple to ensure an encrypted connection.
Sure there are ways, but without regulation I struggle to see why should/would Apple ever bother. Nor do I think that a forced way would be held to the same standards as the rest.
> Put another way, avoiding the global observations: If it's impossible, why allow watches to be paired at all?
Because they can't do much, if anything at all?
But the Apple Watch can, and a lot of the same arguments apply to it as much as any third party watch.
(happy to detail more, like everyone, I love talking about myself :P but figured I'd start with the TL;DR, i.e. the App Store + subsequent boom happened at such a time that made it seems reasonable, years later, to dropout, and having 0 responsibility outside restaurant shifts gave me a fulcrum)
I also worked on Android Wear's iOS app for working with iPhones.
The major problem I see now with these excuses, that I'd like to claim wasn't an issue when I was making them circa 2015-2017, is they're cargo cult (a la Apple likes making things that just work) or boogeymen (if they did anything different, a bluetooth connection would be used, unencrypted, sending all your data into the ether).
The watch has been out for 10 years.
Software is software. Where there's a will, there's a way.
It's very, very, very, hard to believe there's 0 way for Apple to ensure an encrypted connection.
Put another way, avoiding the global observations: If it's impossible, why allow watches to be paired at all?