Samsung held its Galaxy Experience event today as part of its virtual presence at MWC 2021 and while it didn’t deliver anything in terms of hardware but we did get a good idea of what ‘Wear OS 3.0′ will bring to the table wearing the One UI skin. The unified platform will sport the One UI skin on Samsung’s Galaxy smartwatches to bring it into line with the rest of the brands’ ecosystem.
Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Watch 4 will debut the new Wear OS (for want of a better name) when it launches in the next couple of months. The three main things we’ve learned during Samsung’s presentation related to the app ecosystem, the phone/watch sync dynamic, and the watch face design software.
Phone/Watch Synchronization
Users will experience a seamless experience where they can download an app on their smartphone and the watch-compatible version will automatically be downloaded and installed on the smartwatch. If you’ve set your smartphone to show the time in different cities then the smartwatch will reflect those choices, automatically.
Apps Ecosystem
Thanks to the unified platform, new features and integrations are possible with third-party apps able to be downloaded directly from the Google Play Store on the Galaxy wearable, something that perhaps the Tizen Watch OS lacked. Apps such as Google Maps, YouTube Music, Adidas Running, Strava, and Calm are all present on the new Wear OS.
Watch Face Design Software
Samsung is also bringing an improved watch face design tool that will make it easier for designers to develop new watch faces. Android developers will be able to join in later in 2021 and share. their designs to Samsung’s collection, giving all users more customization options.
As we said at the start of the post, Samsung didn’t exactly give much away as to what we can expect to see from the new Wear OS, or whatever it ends up being called. We’ll have to wait until the next Unpacked event to see the hardware that runs it.
