The Samsung Mobile World Congress was once again all about wearables. The big news at the event tonight (or afternoon, depending on the time zone) was our best ever look at a redesigned user interface for the company’s Galaxy Watches line.
One UI Watch – which gets its name from the Galaxy mobile interface – will share a design language with that of the company’s Galaxy phones. The upcoming One UI Watch will be presented this summer at an upcoming unpacked event with the new user interface and the upcoming joint Samsung / Google platform.
Credit: Samsung / Google
At last month’s I / O, it was teased for the first time that the two technology powerhouses would join forces for a wearables project. However, we still have little information about it – including what it will actually be called.
The partnership was originally announced as a “unified platform” that would allow developers to create a single app for both Google’s Wear OS and Tizen, the open source operating system that Samsung has long relied on for its own smartwatches. As we discovered at the time, developing third-party apps has proven to be a significant hurdle for both companies to take on Apple’s dominance in this space.
One of the advantages of partnerships is that as soon as a watch-compatible app has been downloaded to a connected smartphone, it is also downloaded into the app. In addition to first-party Google apps like Maps and YouTube Music, the list naturally includes Spotify, Calm, Strava, Adidas Running and Sleep Cycle.
Credit: Samsung / Google
“Samsung and Google have a long history of working together, and whenever we have worked together, the experience for our consumers has been dramatically better for all,” said Google SVP Sameer Samat in a press release linked to the news. “That certainly applies to this new, unified platform that is being introduced for the first time on Samsung’s new Galaxy Watch. We’re excited to be working with Samsung to bring longer battery life, faster performance and a wide range of apps, including many from Google, to a whole new portable experience. “
Such a partnership seems strange at first glance – Samsung shunned Google’s wearable operating system a long time ago in favor of its own heavily customized version of Tizen. Ultimately, however, the two seem to be united against the monolith Apple – which currently accounts for around 40% of the world market. Samsung ranks second, but even with Fitbit under its wing, Google still has some way to go.
Samsung will also be showing improved development tools that will make it easier to create things like watch faces for the platform.