There are also promises of updates for Wear OS 3 devices
The Google Pixel Watch and the Samsung Galaxy Watch5 receive different product support, even though both watches run a version of the Wear OS 3 system, it was revealed Wired from his interview. The newspaper spoke with Björn Kilburn, who is the director responsible for product management of Wear OS devices at Google. Kilburn promised three years of update support for the Pixel Watch.
Pixel Watch (source: Google) [+]
But why does the Galaxy Watch5 manufactured by Samsung get four years of support? Google’s official answer is that with the release of the Wear OS 3.X versions, Google itself leaves the process and the updates are handled by the manufacturers, while previously the update packages for Wear OS devices came uniformly from Google. In addition to the updates, Google is also withdrawing from the version 3 system, starting with how Wear OS devices connect to phones, and entrusts the development of the appropriate application to manufacturers, there will no longer be a Wear OS by Google application. This can be both good and bad news. In the case of Samsung, for example, changing the platform was not a problem, because South Koreans have had smartwatches within their own ecosystem for years, and the company has the resources it can regroup for development. In the case of a smaller manufacturer, however, it can be problematic, it can run into walls if it wants to work with Wear OS, but cannot allocate enough resources for development. In the same way, iOS compatibility must be solved by the manufacturers in the case of Wear OS 3 devices, so far only the Montblanc Summit 3 is the only one that can work with the iPhone.
Watch5 Pro alongside Watch4 Classic [+]
Kilburn also said that Google plans to release new major versions of Wear OS every year, and quarterly security updates and other feature-enhancing updates already known on Pixel phones. For those who use a Snapdragon Wear 4100 or 4100+ based smartwatch running Wear OS 2, Google promises that they will receive a Wear OS 3 update by the end of 2022. But it is not yet known exactly when.
The Pixel Watch now relies on Fitbit’s app to record workouts. (source: Google)
When asked why the Pixel Watch comes with Fitbit’s application instead of Google Fit, and what is Google’s plan for the two programs so that they increasingly merge Fitbit and their own lifestyle application, Kilburn did not answer. Although knowing what Google does with its projects, it wouldn’t be a surprising move if they did one of the two programs.
