Pixel Watch 2 was announced this week, and it brings with it the new Wear OS 4. There should be an asterisk next to “new”: we’ve already seen Wear OS on the Galaxy Watch6 series, although that was Samsung’s heavily customized take on the new system operating.
Either way, the Watch 2 will run the new OS right out of the box, the original Pixel Watches will receive it as an update later this year. Meanwhile, developers can use Galaxy Watch to test their apps.
One thing they might want to try is the Watch Face format: it was developed in collaboration with Samsung and allows developers to define the look and behavior of watch faces in XML. There is no executable code involved, Wear OS will handle the rendering of the watch face instead. This means developers don’t have to worry about code optimization and battery performance.
Watch faces created using the watch face format
Wear OS 4 also brings version 1.2 of the Jetpack Tiles library, which includes new animation features and data bindings – an easy way to show updated data in your app (for example, the number of steps taken today that updates automatically).
Moving to new hardware is easier with cloud backup and recovery. For example, when you upgrade from Pixel Watch to Pixel Watch 2, you’ll be able to choose which apps and files to transfer. Or, if you’re switching to a new phone instead, you can now transfer your watch without having to do a factory reset.
Transferring your watch data to a new phone is now much easier
Keep in mind that Wear OS 4 is based on Android 13 while Wear OS 3.5 was based on Android 11. There have been a couple of major changes since then (for example, no more 32-bit support), so developers should make sure that their apps work on Android 13. new operating system.
They can do this with the Wear OS 4 emulator, using the new Pixel Watch 2 (and soon the original Pixel Watch), and other v4-compatible watches.
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