Google and Samsung joined forces on the new Wear OS

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Google and Samsung joined forces on the new Wear OS

After years without a major update, Wear OS is getting some love today at Google's I/O developer conference. The software's latest version is coming, and was developed in collaboration with Samsung. This isn't the deep Fitbit integration some of us might have been expecting since Google completed its acquisition earlier this year, but it's still a pretty huge deal.

https://youtu.be/Uq70PUBiWp0

Wear OS meets Tizen OS
I've long considered Samsung's Tizen to be the best smartwatch platform for Android users and this partnership demonstrates Google's ability to recognize the Korean company's expertise in this area. Though neither Tizen nor Wear OS measure up to Apple's watchOS at the moment, Samsung's software at least offers good built-in health and fitness tracking, along with a navigation system that makes common functions easy to find. Wear OS, meanwhile, is a simple skeleton that relies on cards and Assistant to get most things done, but has much more third-party app support than Tizen.

We don't have all the details on what the new UI will look like yet, but based on some renders Google has provided, it looks like some navigation changes are coming. First, a double tap of a physical button on the watch case will let you switch between your current and previous apps, like a Spotify dashboard and a Strava workout session.

Google is also expanding its existing Tiles feature, which lets you swipe horizontally through a selection of widgets, to third-party apps. It was previously limited to first-party functions like Weather, Fit and Heart Rate. Some third-party examples we've seen so far include a relaxation timer from Calm. Google said you'll be able to customize the carousel of Tiles to make your favorites easier to reach. Hopefully, we'll see more support from developers since the Tiles alpha was opened up in March. A horizontal carousel of widgets would make Wear OS feel much more similar to Tizen, at least on the surface.

Google also said it learned things from Samsung like how to optimize battery efficiency and run certain processes in the background for a better user experience. In addition to improved performance like apps starting 30 percent faster and having smoother animations and transitions, the two companies also worked on things like the chipsets and platform-level enhancements. This should improve battery life, though don't expect to see longer runtimes just yet. The energy efficiencies are more to enable useful processes without draining too much juice. Things like constant heart rate monitoring or sleep tracking, for example, were possible on previous versions of Wear OS but would sap the battery too much to be really useful.

The new combined platform would be more open, according to director of product management for Wear OS Bjorn Kilburn, and Google would be providing a new reference UI for watch makers. "We're going to enable OEMs the ability to customize that experience much more deeply than they were able to in the past," he told Engadget. This means companies like Fossil and Montblanc can tweak the software more deeply than before, which could result in smartwatches from different OEMs being more distinct than before.

Improved health and fitness tracking
One area where Wear OS fell short of Tizen and Apple's watchOS before was health and fitness tracking. Though Google Fit tracked things like your steps progress and heart health points (gained from cardio activity), Wear OS didn't offer a very well-integrated exercise-tracking system.

Samsung to completely rebuild the health and fitness framework on Wear," Kilburn told Engadget. He said the team collaborated with Samsung to learn how to run things like constant heart rate tracking without draining too much battery. Google also got input from both partners on how to make use of sensors like accelerometers and heart rate scanners for a comprehensive health-tracking system. At I/O, the company launched a Health Services API alpha that would let developers get familiar with the new features available on the latest Wear OS.

In addition, Fitbit is building an app for the new Wear that will bring in its tools like workout tracking, health and activity monitoring throughout the day and on-screen celebrations. It's not yet clear if Fitbit's capable sleep-tracking function will be coming to Wear OS, but if it does, it'd give Google's platform an edge over Apple. Since Fitbit uses your heart rate to tell what sleep stage you're in throughout the night, it offers more insight than watchOS, which doesn't interpret your cardio data that way yet.

Other upcoming changes
Some other changes include upcoming refreshes of Google's own apps like Pay, Maps and YouTube Music, and the Assistant. Support for offline music playback (via YouTube Music and Spotify) is coming and Maps is also getting turn by turn navigation on the wrist soon.

SOURCE - https://www.engadget.com/google-samsung-new-wear-os-rip-tizen-183031381.html