To conclude the week with “Android Beyond Phones” – following TV, Auto and Chrome OS developments, Google is talking today about its portable platform. A Wear OS OTA update this fall will improve performance while a new Weather app was previewed.
Google says performance, power and other “foundations” are the focus of this update. It starts with “CPU core enhancements” that will speed up app startup times by 20%. This OTA is not based on Android 11, although the company briefly mentioned the new OS in today’s blog – more on that below. After all, Google told us that it has a team dedicated to performing performance optimizations on the core platform without draining the battery.
There will also be support for the new Snapdragon Wear 4100 and 4100+ chips that Qualcomm announced in early July. The first watch to drive the new chipset – which sees significant process-sized shrinkage (28nm to 12nm) and delivers 85% faster CPU performance – will be from Mobvoi later this year. Overall, Google says it is “excited about the kinds of portable experiences that can be enabled in the future.”
The initial pairing process will also be simplified to “make onboarding easier.” Google also points to a broader UI refresh that “makes it faster to access your info”, with two specific areas indicated:
You’ll see improvements to our SysUI for more intuitive controls for managing various watch modes and workouts
This Wear OS OTA update is coming to all watches with the Snapdragon Wear 3100 chip in the fall.
Meanwhile, Google also announced a new ‘experience’ of weather for Wear OS that has already been detected in testing and will officially come later this year.
With large iconography and figures, it will be “easier to read when you are on the go.” It starts with a large icon for the current state, while there is an equally large temperature reading that also indicates your current location. High / low temperatures run the tile, with this storage as an example of Wear OS that “delivers more useful experiences.”
At the front of the developer, Google says it “works to bring the best of Android 11 to portability.” While confirmed, however, it did not share details on when exactly Android 11 will come to Wear OS.
The focus today is on how developers can use modern practices from other form factors to build wearable apps. With “System H” in 2018, the company is embracing the Android version as new features are now delivered without the need for full OS updates.
Many of the things you’ve seen in modern Android development – from Android Studio, a great language with Kotlin, and Jetpack libraries to make common tasks easier, will be part of what you can expect when developer who builds usable apps.
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