Wear OS

We went hands-on with the long-awaited release of YouTube Music for Wear OS earlier week, and while the app certainly gets the job done, it comes with the requirement for Wear OS 3. Unfortunately, that’s a restriction that can’t be easily overcome, either.

It’s been nearly a year since Google pulled the plug on Play Music in favor of YouTube Music, and in the time since, Wear OS has been left without an official way to tie into Google’s streaming music service. Now, YouTube Music is finally available for download on Wear OS.

Following a tease last week before the unveil of the Galaxy Watch 4, a leak of the Fossil Gen 6 smartwatch lineup today reveals a rather straightforward successor.

Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 4 is very clearly still a product that favors Galaxy smartphone owners, but it seems like the product is opening up a bit more compared to past generations. Not only does the Galaxy Watch 4 partially support charging from Google’s Pixel 5, but it even seems to work on some standard Qi charging pads.

After a few years of neglecting the platform, Google is putting effort back into Wear OS in a huge way this year, and that starts with the Galaxy Watch 4. Samsung is the first company to bring Wear OS 3 to the market, and it comes with a custom skin on the platform that, as you’d probably expect, has an agenda different from Google’s.

Samsung products have always been a bit tricky when it comes to voice assistants since the company has its own Bixby offering but usually is required to still support Google Assistant alongside it. With the Galaxy Watch 4 series, the Wear OS-based smartwatches will be lacking Google Assistant entirely when they launch and might have to wait for Google Pay.

At the start of this month, a revamped Google Play started appearing on Wear OS. Google today officially announced this Material You redesign of the Play Store and that the ability to install Wear OS apps to your from your phone is rolling out.

Smartwatches have long been neglected by Spotify, offering only controls instead of offline listening. Following a launch on Apple Watch earlier this year, Spotify is now rolling out its revamped Wear OS app with support for offline downloads, and it works everywhere.

While Samsung’s past wearables have always offered great hardware and software, one reason I’ve been hesitant to call them “the best” is the frustrating act of using them with a non-Samsung phone. Despite the new Galaxy Watch 4 using Wear OS, I’m sad to see that the pairing process is just as rough.

The future is much brighter for Wear OS thanks to revamped software and much better hardware, but current watches are left in a weird state of limbo. Today, Google has revealed that its new apps for YouTube Music and Google Maps on Wear OS are coming out very soon, but they won’t come to older models.

Following its reveal at Google I/O earlier this year, Wear OS 3 is officially making its debut today with the return of a major name. Samsung is launching the Galaxy Watch 4 series on Wear OS. Here’s what you need to know.

Tomorrow will hopefully mark the beginning of the Apple Watch getting a serious competitor in the form of Samsung hardware running Google software. The wearable space is in serious need of competition, but it’s unfortunate how the two competing efforts are fundamentally the same. That similarity has deep ramifications for how we will experience technology for the foreseeable future.

Back in June, the Fossil Group said it was releasing a premium “Gen 6” Wear OS watch this fall. Fossil today sent out an email teasing that “Gen 6 is coming” and that it would be “way faster.”

Ahead of the launch of the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 series, we’re learning that Wear OS will soon be able to support “alternate” assistants, such as Bixby.

Google’s Wear OS has always been known for its battery life, but in a negative sense rather than a positive one. The platform has been notorious for powering smartwatches that can only last about a day, but Wear OS 3 will seemingly change that. According to a new Galaxy Watch 4 Classic leak, battery life could last as long as a whopping seven days.

August has arrived, and with it, the countdown to Samsung’s next Unpacked event where we’ll see the debut of new foldables, earbuds, and the company’s first Wear OS smartwatches in years. This weekend, the first live images of the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic have hit the web, showing off both colors and a peek at the Wear OS UI.

Google is leaving behind almost the entire Wear OS catalog for its next big update with very few exceptions. More watches are coming between now and the wide availability of Wear OS 3, and it seems that Mobvoi will be launching more TicWatch models without the new version at launch.