freeamfva: Google and Samsung unite to reboot Android watches

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Were you considering buying a smartwatch for your Android phone? Hold off until the fall. Google and Samsung have announced a partnership to redesign Google's Wear OS for watches, and Samsung's future Galaxy watches will run on this new software. Also, Fitbit is making a Wear OS app, and will have its own watch too. The news broke at this year's Google I/O developer conference on Tuesday.To get more news about custom watch, you can visit koalaprint.com official website.

Sound like a lot? It is. The possibility of Samsung's watches moving to Google's software has been expected, and Fitbit's already a part of Google. But Samsung and Fitbit collaborating with Google sounds like a Justice League of wearable tech, and suggests a lot of changes in the Android watch landscape to go head-to-head against the Apple Watch. New watches built with this new software are coming in the fall, and right now it's hard to determine what exactly it could add up to.
I spoke with Google, plus representatives from Fitbit and Samsung, to break it all down and understand what's happening. Bottom line: Samsung looks like it's going to be making what looks to be the go-to Android watch later this year, and Fitbit will follow after that. And eventually, Samsung's watches may end up getting all those Fitbit features too.

Samsung's partnership with Google looks to be extensive. The two companies are co-designing not just the next version of WearOS, but also its technical capabilities, including fitness sensor support and future chipsets for smartwatches.

"We're seeing apps start up to 30% faster, and the performance is allowing us to add animations and transitions that are super smooth that we didn't have before, all of this powered on the latest chipsets," Bjorn Kilburn, director of product management for Google Wear, said on a Google Hangout call.

These next-generation watches will be more cellular-ready, have better battery life, and also look like they'll have more fitness and health features. Odds are that the platform will parallel what Samsung's already been building up on its recent Galaxy Watch Active wearables.

Google's apps for Wear OS are also getting updates. A new Google Maps will work without a phone on the new Wear OS watches. YouTube Music is getting an offline music mode for watches, and so is Spotify. The partnership also looks like it could once again open up electronics partners to make Wear OS watches. "It will enable the entire Android ecosystem of device-makers to bring their cutting edge hardware and software experiences to the wearable space like Android has done for phones," Kilburn said. That suggests that other Android phone OEMs that used to be active in the Wear OS space could end up coming back.

Kilburn didn't confirm what chipsets these watches will have, though. "We're very focused on using the latest chipsets for wearables. And a lot of the choices around what chipsets are actually used will be down to The OEM's choice," he said. Also, not all Wear OS watches may make the leap to these next-gen and more premium-sounding features and software. "Whether those existing devices get upgraded or not, will be a function of a few different things. It will depend on whether the hardware itself can support the upgrade, and it will be a function of whether the OEM chooses to do the upgrade," said Kilburn.