Google’s smartwatch platform Wear OS, he has not received much love from the company, but frankly, laziness is starting to get ridiculous. In accordance with 9 to 5Google, new owners of Wear OS watches now have difficulty installing certain applications after the company told developers it was ending its legacy application installation method.
Behind a little more, in 2017 Google changed the way users of Wear OS (then Android Wear 2.0) downloaded third-party apps to their smartwatches. Previously, smartwatch applications were incorporated with phone versions. But Google then presented an independent app store on the wrist. The measure was intended to make Wear OS watches less dependent on phones to work, but the old method was still an option, so yes if you wanted, you could find out which apps were installed on the Wear OS clock using the Phone applications Play Store section.
However, last month Google apparently emailed developers saying it would be this inherited embedded model kaput from March 10th. On his e-mail, Google said it was removing the embedded legacy application model because it added excessive inflation to the APK for non-smart watch users. He also revealed that applications that use this method would disappear from the Phone applications section and would also be unknown in Play Store on the wrist. Developers were also encouraged to migrate to the new multi-APK model, so that their apps would be discovered and reduce the inflation of phone apps.
A the standalone app store on the wrist is not bad. (Damn, Apple just hugged one with series 5.) However, if you have ever used Wear OS, look for applications which you know absolutely exists it doesn’t always work the way you want it to. For example, I’ve tried searching for apps known as Uber and Google Maps in the Play OS Play Store, only to be frustrated by the interface. Writing on a small screen is never fun, and depending on the processor that has the Wear OS clock, everything can be slowly tedious. It’s not horrible if you only download one or two apps. However, if you are setting up a new smartwatch, it will be a lot it’s easier to get out of apps that you already use on your phone and that also work on your watch. Forcing Wear OS users, especially those who have been loyal to the platform for a long time, to download it all individually through the wrist is stupid. Forcing us Wear OS users to do this are to configure people to hate the platform or underuse one of the most robust third-party smartwatch app stores.
Aside from the hassle, the other problem here is that if you buy a new phone and re-pair the existing Wear OS watch, the Applications to Your Pperfect the option will also go wrong at night. If the apps you trust haven’t been upgraded to the new way of doing things, and let’s be real, some developers haven’t wanted to prioritize Wear OS apps, you could be battling an uphill battle. In at least one case, a diabetic user went to the program Use the OS subreddit Note that after upgrading to a Pixel 5, they could no longer use the add-on app for their Dexcom G6 glucose monitor. The app was on your phone, but now there was no way to install it on your watch after re-pairing it with a factory update. There are solutions, for sure, but the average person has no time for this nonsense.
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This particular example is not fantastic. Dexcom definitely deserves a little warmth to let Wear OS users in a leap. After all, Google did to email developers, this change would come and it’s up to them to keep their apps up to date. However, it’s also up to Google to invest in this platform to make it worthwhile.
Google is the leader here. If you’re an app developer, how do you see when Google prioritizes one YouTube Music app for Apple Watch on your own platform? Are you supposed to feel compelled to release new versions when Wear OS barely receives updates? How about the fact that Google has been aware of the “Hhas been Google’s activator keyword for the Wear OS Wizard broken for months?
One of the main reasons why an Android user opts for Wear OS on Samsung’s Tizen (although soon you may not have this option) is a more robust app store, the Google Assistant and Google Pay. Two out of three of these reasons now come with asterisks. Users should not have to rely on workarounds or even factory reset Wear OS watches when upgrading to a new phone. Google had the option here to find out another way, educate users i developers of what was coming.
So, as Wear OS is the butt of the joke in the world of smart watches, we’d better thrive. But after months of stories like this, does Google want this?