What you need to know
- Ahead of next month's Google I/O conference, Google has revealed a preliminary schedule of developer sessions.
- One of these sessions is a preview of Wear OS 5, and serves as Google's first official confirmation that a Wear OS upgrade is coming this year.
- The “Designing for the Future of Wear OS” session description includes some early details about what the upgrade will bring.
Google I/O 2024 is fast approaching, with the event starting in a few weeks and could bring announcements of new hardware and software from Google. The company gave us our first real idea of what to expect when it released a Initial I/O schedule 2024 On Thursday, April 25th. This schedule includes early confirmation that a Wear OS upgrade will be available soon.
There are four main categories of events at Google I/O this year: mobile, web, machine learning/AI, and cloud. One of the mobile sessions entitled “Building for the future of Wear OS“, clearly listing Wear OS 5 – the unreleased version of Wear OS that was previously expected to come this year – as its focus. Back in January, references to Wear OS 5 were spotted in the Android 14 build, indicating There is an upgrade on the horizon.
However, there has been no official confirmation from Google that Wear OS 5 will be released in the near future. While we expect to hear about upcoming Android updates at Google I/O, Wear OS upgrades are typically released on a sporadic and inconsistent schedule. That's why Google's announcement has more significance than a typical Google I/O announcement and bodes well for the future of Google's wearable ecosystem.
What we know about Wear OS 5 so far
Surprisingly, Google provided little information about Wear OS 5 in the description of its preview session. “In this conversation, we'll discover the new features of Wear OS 5,” Google says. “This includes advances in watch face format, and how to design and build for the increasing range of device sizes.”
the Watch the facial format Introduced about a year ago alongside Wear OS 4, Google explains that it “can be used to build watch faces directly, or can be integrated into build tools, allowing designers to create watch faces without having to write any executable code.” It has shifted much of the burden of creating a custom watch face — such as optimization, updates, and bug fixes — from individual developers to Wear OS. Additionally, it has added a consistent UI for editing watch faces across first- and third-party options.
This gives watch face designers plenty of ways to customize their offerings, and pairs well with Samsung's Watch Face Studio, which can be used to create XML watch faces in the Watch Face Format.
So, Google's talk about updating the Watch Face format in Wear OS 5 could bring new features and options to your favorite watch faces. There may be new ways to show complications, adjust the look of the watch face depending on the situation, or add new design tools. This is all just speculation, but Google clearly has new tricks up for grabs in the updated Watch Face format that will be shown off at I/O 2024.
The only thing we know for sure is that the Watch Face Format, or watch face design software, will be updated to help developers design different sizes for smart watches. Google says as much in the description of its Wear OS 5 offering, and it's not entirely surprising. Rumors are circulating that Google will finally add a new, larger Pixel Watch size later this year in the Pixel Watch 3 series. It makes sense that it wants to make sure Wear OS watch faces will look great on all Pixel Watch models.
We've come a long way since Google neglected Wear OS
Forget specific features, it's a huge accomplishment that we're getting a Wear OS 5 upgrade this year at all. Wear OS devices are on a steady roll, with Samsung launching excellent models of the Galaxy Watch and Google joining the Pixel Watch over a year ago. In this context, it's easy to forget how vulnerable the entire Wear OS platform was just a few years ago.
If we look at Google's Wear OS forums, you can find countless examples of early Wear OS users describing the uncertain future of the platform and issues that have remained unresolved for months or years. One 2020 post asked: “Is Google abandoning Wear OS?” It received support from other Wear OS users before it was locked and replies disabled. The issue mentioned in this post? Google developed the YouTube Music app for watchOS, not Wear OS. It's a perfect microcosm of the problems that plagued the dark days of Wear OS.
Now, it's starting to pick up, and the release of Wear OS 5 this year may mark the beginning of a steady annual release schedule for Google for major version updates. This would put it on par with Apple's watchOS release timeline and would come as great news for Wear OS users. The hardware available in Wear OS watches is very good in 2024, thanks to chips like the Snapdragon W5 Plus Gen 1, but the software still lags behind Apple Watch models in many ways. Now, with Google fully participating in Wear OS with partner Samsung, that may change forever.
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