WearOS rocketed from ~4% of the smartwatch market to 17% in Q3 2021

WearOS got the booster shot it needed from the launch of Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 4.

Google’s smartwatch operating system has struggled for years to gain traction against not only the might of Apple’s WatchOS but also rival platforms from the likes of Huawei, Fitbit, Amazfit, Garmin, and even Samsung.

Samsung was an early supporter of WearOS but eventually gave up on the platform and switched to its own Tizen-based alternative. Earlier this year, a surprise joint...

22 November 2021 | Platforms

Google CEO teases ‘significant’ announcements at I/O 2021 as some normality returns

Google CEO Sundar Pichai told investors this week to expect “significant product updates and announcements” at this year’s I/O developer conference.

Pichai said the company’s product releases are returning to their normal pace now that employees have adjusted to working from home.

Google is allowing employees to return voluntarily from next month and is expanding its remote working policy to allow for working from overseas for more than 14 days a year if they...

29 April 2021 | Android

Google looks set to finally release the Tiles API for WearOS

Google appears to be gearing up to finally release the Tiles API for its WearOS wearable platform.

Compared to Apple’s WatchOS, developments for WearOS are so few and far between that it often feels that Google has given up.  However, it’s clear Google hasn’t fully thrown in the towel when it comes to its wearable platform.

In 2019, (yes, 2019…) Google announced ‘Tiles’ for WearOS. Tiles are essentially widgets which offer glanceable information to the...

5 January 2021 | API