After five foresightful age , Google has finally done what every other major smartwatch maker has already figured out : How to add widgets .
In ablog , Google announced today it ’s adding a feature call Tile to Wear O forrader of its I / O consequence next week . It works by impart swipeable shortcuts to popular apps on your mechanical man - friendly smartwatch . To access them , you swipe leave from the master screen . Even though it ’s have a dissimilar name , it ’s fundamentally the exact same matter as the widgets you already get on Samsung ’s Tizen operating system on its Galaxy Watches . Functionally , it ’s also like to the tortuousness you ’ll determine on various Apple Watch clock face .
The “ Tiles ” as Google calls them — let ’s be real , they ’re widgets — will be limit . For now , the only ones useable will be : Goals , Next upshot , Forecast ( conditions ) , Heart rate , Headlines , and Timer . Even with the limited options , Android smartwatch user should rejoice . antecedently , to access your most commonly used apps you still had to go through the master computer menu or sift through the Google bid storehouse for a separatewidget appor comb through the K of Wear OS watch look for one that allow you customize complications without melting your eyes with its hideousness . Some watches would let you program shortcuts if it had multiple buttons , but that bet on an individual watch ’s excogitation . If you opt for a watch with a single push , you were kind of screwed .
A Tile by any other name is still a widget.Gif: Google
All this to say , you could get widgets on Wear O previously . It was just way more effort than necessary . Google add them natively is a massive improvement to the overall Wear OS experience .
But while this is a much - postulate update , it ’s barely an innovation . Other smartwatch platform have had widget , complicatedness , crosscut — whatever you want to call them — for years now . This is really just Google play catchup to the stripped minimum . Visually , I ca n’t punctuate enough how much this looks like a carbon paper copy of Samsung ’s interface , without adding a Tile that ’s specifically unique to Wear group O . ( Samsung , for instance , has a stress monitoring widget . )
Still , Google does merit credit formassively overhaulingthe Wear OS interface over the past year . It ’s done wonders for the political platform ’s usability as a whole . In addition to improving Google Assistant on the wrist , a few month ago it addedswipeable access to the Google Fitscreen — intelligibly , a trial run for Tiles .
According to Google , the new Tiles will be rolling out gradually to Wear type O smartwatches over the next month . It also added that “ certain features will diverge by phone OS , watch , or country , ” which might mean that iPhone user might have a more or less forged experience . ( Then again , that ’s in general true for any iPhone user using an Android sentinel . )
All - in - all , this tracks with Google ’s recent regenerate interest in smartwatches after spend old age on the back burner . Earlier in January , it acquired someresearchers and tech from Fossil , its longest - tolerate wearable partner . Do any of these incremental improvements signal a Pixel find out popping up this class ? in all probability not , but at the very least we should pop out seeing a better pile of Android smartwatches — and that is long delinquent .
GadgetsGoogleGoogle I / OSmartwatches
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