Apple’s dominance in the market has been on as far back as 2018 with the WatchOs garnering up the largest market share at 16.2 percent throughout the world while Google’s Wear OS and Android’s Wear are in meager 6.4 percent and 4.3 percent respectively. These are figures released by Statista, a German company that specializes in market and consumer data.
It will definitely change the demography of the smart watch market with the coming together of Google, renowned search engine and Samsung, a leading electronics brand. The new deal will have a merger between Open Source Tizen from Samsung and Wear OS from Google to create an all-round product that will propel the Android wearable’s market into greater heights.
Google, while announcing the collaboration, enumerated the benefits of the merger wrote in a blog post: “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 excitement of Google in the collaboration can be felt in the announcement as the move will indicate both Tech companies synergizing to challenge and if possible end Apple’s dominance in the market as Apple’s share market is forecasted to further increase to 17.3 percent from its current 16.2 percent by 2022.
The two companies further announced that under the new merger, apps will be 30 percent faster in the new chipsets that will have smooth user interface animations.
“To achieve longer battery life, we’ve worked to optimize the lower layers of the operating system – taking advantage of low-power hardware cores to enable better battery life,” the blog post explained.
One of the highlights of the update is the optimization of the devices that gives it the ability to run the heart rate sensor in the day, track overnight sleep and still power on for the next day.
The unified platform will also be an open-source one, that will enable all device makers to leverage app building from the scratch.
According to the Blog post, “This isn’t just for Google and Samsung. 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,”.
In the new update, emphasis would be placed on agility and reliability to enable users access shortcuts to key functions from anywhere on the watch.
Google’s Director of Product Management at Wear, Bjorn Kilburn posited in the blog post that the unified platform will issue out new tools, like a Tiles API and a watch face design editor built by Samsung, to untangle the development of new experiences on wearable’s.
There is another icing on the cake, lovers of music will be excited to learn that YouTube Music will be placed on Wear, fully equipped with smart download features to give listeners the ability to enjoy music at any time they wish to.
Another exciting feature is Fitness Interval Tracker & Body Index Technology, Fitbit coming on the new update: “The best of Fitbit, including features like tracking your health progress throughout your day and on-wrist goal celebrations, will motivate you on your journey to better health”, Google emphatically announced.
The platform will finally give users the opportunity to personalize their watch home screen carousel with tiles from their favourite apps like Calm, Sleep Cycle, and Flo; , further allowing users to choose the particular information they want to be shown on the screen.
There are lot more to expect, Apple should get prepared for real competition!
Ayoola Faseyi, an Abuja based Journalist with interest in Technology and Politics. He is a versatile writer with articles in many renowned News Journals. He is the Co-Founder of media brand, The Vent Republic.
