Porter OS was a footnote to I / O



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Does that say a lot about the announcement made by Google around Wear OS a week before its annual I / O developer conference? Or was this announcement about adding a feature that had existed for some time on a rival smart watch – was not it a revolutionary addition to a smart watch platform that remains in the lag behind the competition?

When Sundar Pichai spoke at Google's speech, he talked about smartphones, smart wizards and privacy. The only thing that one could wear on the stage was the sport Fossil that he wore.

Essential reading: Best smart watches to buy now

That's a question we keep asking ourselves, but are smartwatches still a priority for Google? In our eyes, it is still hard to provide an appropriate response to what others (not just Apple) currently offer to those who want useful information on their wrist. It's been five years since the OS formerly known as Android Wear was unveiled. While computer hardware moved away from the original technology, prototypes of smartphone companions and watches that looked much more like the "idiotic" but classic designs that inspired them, the software that pulls them did not suffer the same transformation.

For a year and a half, Google has been trying to do what it should have done from the beginning. Making Wear Wear more user-friendly, working better with non-Android phones, and offering the kind of health and fitness features that Apple, Garmin and Fitbit have proven, are the features people are looking for on their smartwatches. By 2019 however, we are still waiting to be swept away by Wear OS.

Why is there so little talk of smartwatches at I / O, the gathering place for Google's developers to improve its platforms, such as Wear OS ,? Our man in the United States, Hugh, was at I / O this week and, if there was a Wear OS demo area where people could get acquainted with the new Tiles feature, that was it. The executives he spoke to said that they were using all the features of Wear OS internally, hinting at bigger things later this year, but it was barely a footnote from Series.

We will never talk about a hero, the Google smartwatch. It's like we're talking about a pixel watch for ages. We thought we could finally see it in 2018, but that never happened, but the assumptions will not go away. And while a pixel watch or whatever Google decides to call it (if it launches one), Google has the impression that something needs to be done and needs to be done, c & # 39; is the software behind everything that really needs to be improved if Google wants to compete with watchOS, Tizen, Fitbit OS and Garmin's fully mature smartwatch platform.

How does it do that? By having a clearer idea of ​​what works and does not work on smartwatches. It's been five years now, Google should understand what is and what does not stick, taking lessons from partners who put Wear OS in the hands (and wrists) of more people. These hardware partners are taking steps themselves to improve Google's operating system, but it is high time that Google proves that it is ready to work properly.

Maybe next year, the Google I / O Sundar Pichai will bring to the scene a Google-built smartwatch in hardware and software, and we'll talk more about the big things that affect Wear OS. My instinct is that we could be in the same place as we are today. I hope I'm wrong.

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