In yet another effort to deepen their relationship, Tech giants Google and Samsung, at the Google developer conference, announced that they will be combining their respective wearable operating systems, namely Wear OS and Tizen OS. The two companies announced that they will be coming together to make a joint software platform for smartwatches and other wearables.
The partnership would create a single central smartwatch OS for the Android platform and will offer a better selection of apps and watch faces. Other benefits will include improvements in the battery life of the wearables, as well as faster loading times for wearable applications, and smoother animations.
According to Google’s Wear Product Management Director; Bjorn Kilburn, Google and Samsung are “bringing the best of Wear and Tizen into a single, unified platform”. He said that “by working together we have been able to take strengths of each and combine them into an experience that has faster performance, longer battery life and more of the apps you love available for the watch”
The partnership, as the companies imply, will help developers. Bjorn Kilburn said that “All device makers will be able to add a customized user experience on top of the platform, and developers will be able to use the Android tools they already know and love to build for one platform and ecosystem.”
Samsung confirmed that next generation Galaxy Watch will run on this new platform and this will even ship with future high end Fitbit devices as well. This means Samsung will use Google’s Wear OS for its upcoming Galaxy smartwatches instead of its Tizen OS.
Reports suggest that this unforeseen move is in a bid to beat the market leader- Apple. Apple is currently leading the market with its iOS smartwatches and wearables. The joint software platform for smartwatches by Google and Samsung will allow all device markets to use this new platform, creating an ecosystem that could challenge Apple as the longtime leader in the market. It is still uncertain that Apple will drop from its position as the leader of the market. No one knows for sure if the collaboration between Google and Samsung will be a threat to Apple.
