Google has announced a new partnership with Samsung that should inject a new life into Wear OS. The two companies have decided to merge Wear OS and Tizen together to create a unified platform. The latter is an operating system that is mainly seen on Samsung smart TVs and wearable devices.

This new platform is currently being referred to as simply "Wear" but the final commercial name could be different. It is claimed to deliver a longer-lasting battery life, up to 30% faster performance, and a smooth user interface and animations. The official blog post says that they are utilizing low-power hardware cores for improving battery life.

Android smartwatch developers will also get benefitted from this union. They will be able to develop apps and experiences for smartwatches in a better and more efficient way. Google says all device makers will be able to add a customized user experience on top of the platform. It demonstrated a new experience where users can switch between the current app and the last used app by simply pressing a button. There is also the ability to switch among different app shortcuts aka Tiles by swiping left/right on the screen.

Google Assistant and Google Maps applications have been redesigned for the new interface. Google Pay will be redesigned in the future and it will be expanded to support 26 countries. The team is also working on bringing YouTube Music to the new platform along with support for offline downloads.

The announcement even reveals that future premium Fitbit devices will also run the new software. This is certainly good news for Fitbit fans who were anticipating such a move ever since Google acquired the company. Samsung has confirmed that its future Galaxy wearables will be running the new Wear operating system instead of the traditionally used Tizen. There is no exact launch date for Wear yet but Google says all of these changes will become available later this year.