Google and Samsung come together to take on Apple Watch

Gadgets Now Bureau / Updated: May 19, 2021, 00:28AM IST

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Google and Samsung come together to take on Apple Watch

Apple Watch has been the best-selling smartwatch in the world for many years. But Google and Samsung may have a plan to make a dent in Apple’s dominance. At the Google I/O 2021, Google announced that it is merging its Wear OS and Samsung’s Tizen OS.

Google in a blog post noted, “We’ve been hard at work in three areas: building a unified platform with Samsung, delivering a new consumer experience and providing updates to your favourite Google apps.”

Going forward, Wear and Tizen OS will be a single, unified platform. “By working together we have been able to take strengths of each and combine them into an experience that has faster performance, longer battery life and more of the apps you love available for the watch,” Google said in the blog post.

Google claims that apps will start up to 30% faster on the latest chipsets with smooth user interface animations and motion. For better and longer battery life, the lower layers of the OS have been optimised. “That includes handy optimisations like the ability to run the heart rate sensor continuously during the day, track your sleep overnight and still have battery for the next day,” said Google.

Other smartwatch makers will also be able to customise the OS. Developers will be able to use Android tools for building apps, according to Google.

Google Maps and Google Assistant are being redesigned and improved for Wear OS. Google Pay will also be redesigned and add support for 26 new countries, beyond the 11 countries currently available. YouTube Music will also arrive on Wear later this year, equipped with features like smart downloads for subscribers to enjoy music while on the go, said Google.

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