Samsung might save Android smartwatches from irrelevance

Samsung might save Android smartwatches from irrelevance

6 years ago
Anonymous $CLwNLde341

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/05/samsung-might-save-android-smartwatches-from-irrelevance/

Today, Google's Android-based smartwatch platform—Wear OS—seems like a dead end. It's currently third in the smartwatch market, after the Apple Watch and Samsung's Tizen-based "Gear S" watches. On the software side of things, Google hasn't been iterating on Wear OS quickly enough. The last major update—Wear 2.0—was roughly 18 months ago, and Google I/O 2018 came and went without a peep about a new update. On the hardware side of things, Wear OS hardware is awful. The market's biggest SoC vendor, Qualcomm, has shown it isn't really interested in the smartwatch market and only offers a slow, hot, old smartwatch SoC based on manufacturing technology from 2013.

Wear OS might soon have a saviour though, at least when it comes to hardware. Vulnerable smartphone leaker Evan Blass claims Samsung employees are sporting Samsung smartwatches running "not Tizen, but Wear OS." Samsung might be coming to save Wear OS.