Smartwatches with Google Wear OS offer the Play Store, but the operating system is slow and the battery life is short. With Tizen OS from Samsung it is exactly the opposite. Combining the advantages of both worlds sounds like a good plan in theory. And it is now being implemented in practice.
Google and Samsung are working together
This is what Google and Samsung announced as part of the keynote on Google I/O 2021. Neither manufacturer wanted to go into detail yet, so countless questions remained unanswered for the time being. At least the goals have already been clearly outlined. In essence, it is about a finally competitive alternative to the Apple Watch with watchOS.
Wear OS will be overhauled
The platform developed jointly by Google and Samsung behind the scenes over the past few years should allow apps to load up to 30 percent faster and extend the battery life compared to the current version of Wear OS. The Play Store is integrated. At the same time, the user interface has been modernized and new shortcuts have been added, which, among other things, make it easier to switch quickly between apps. In addition, it should be easier for app developers to create so-called tiles for the start screen, which in turn enable wearers to see the information that is most important to them when they look at the clock.
In addition, Google wants to have over 20 apps of its own, is offering an offline music option for YouTube Music for the first time, and Spotify has announced the same for its own app for Wear OS.
With Fitbit, another partner has also been involved in the development. Fitbit has been part of Google since 2019, the company had the acquisition cost 2.1 billion US dollars. Thanks to Fitbit's expertise, the health functions of the new platform should also be impressive – both Wear OS and Tizen OS recently couldn't keep up with the competition from Apple. Fitbit talks about bringing “the best of Fitbit” into Wear OS by adopting “some of Fitbit's most popular features”. In the future, Fitbit will then “build premium smartwatches based on Wear OS”. It remains to be seen whether Fitbit products with their own OS and possibly even more functions will continue to exist. At least in products for lower price points or the fitness trackers, this could still be the case for the time being.
In the relationship between Google and Samsung, there is currently no final clarity as to whether Samsung Always rely on the new platform in the future, or there will continue to be models with their own Tizen OS. Because with the new platform, Samsung is giving up the independence from Google that it has lived with Tizen for years. And not just to Google.
The new platform is open to everyone
Die The new platform, which will probably continue to be called “Wear (OS)”, will also be available to other interested partners after it has been released later this year. As with Android, it will be possible for every OEM to adapt the user interface and thus make a differentiation via the software despite the identical substructure. This is also new.