Image Courtesy: Campaign India
The Google Play store has apparently gotten a Wear OS 3.0 upgrade before of the official release. The upgrade changes the look of the app marketplace’s user interface (UI) for smartwatches running Google’s new operating system. Wear OS 3.0 was revealed by Google during its Google I/O event in May, and it would be developed in conjunction with Samsung. The upgrade looks to be trickling out to a small number of users right now, and a larger deployment to all Wear OS smartwatches may take some time.
According to a Reddit post by u/alehel, the Google Play store update for the Suunto 7 wristwatch includes a new UI. 9to5Google was the first to notice the Reddit post. Items are now shown in pill-shaped cards in the new UI, making the list of programmes more compact. The cards are more legible since they have a contrasting Grey colour over a Black backdrop. The colour of the search card has also been changed from green to white as part of the makeover. It still uses the traditional style of listing apps, with their logo on the left and their name below it, followed by a star rating. The My Apps updates page has also been redesigned.
WearOS was last redesigned in November 2019. The smartwatch OS received a design refresh as well as minor modifications. Instead of the hidden pulldown menu, the redesign placed My Apps, Accounts, and Settings sections at the bottom of the main page. Apart from a darker backdrop, the remainder of the Google Play Store’s UI hasn’t changed much.
Google announced a partnership with Samsung during its Google I/O event in May. The decision indicates that Samsung would abandon the Tizen platform in favour of Google’s Wear OS for its forthcoming Galaxy smartwatches. The Google-Samsung partnership is likely to pose tough challenge to Apple, which has dominated the wristwatch industry.
