Wearables
Wear OS 4 (One UI 5 Watch) to bring animated tiles, golf tracking
Google’s Wear OS 4 is available for developers via an emulator, while Samsung is about to drop the first Beta for Galaxy smartwatches. It’s almost confirmed that One UI 5 Watch will be based on Wear OS 4, thanks to the close collaboration between Samsung and Google.
Ahead of the rollout, Google introduced animated Tiles on Wear OS 4, which are coming to various apps including Poleton, Spotify, and WhatsApp. In addition, the next big upgrade to the platform will also introduce native golf tracking.
Animated Tiles
Similar to smartphones, both firms appear to be focusing on the user interface’s interface and transitions. Wear OS 4 will bring animated tiles for various applications from Samsung and third-party devs. According to Google, it’s working with WhatsApp, Spotify, and Poleton to bring Tiles to their apps.
Version 1.2 of the Jetpack Tiles library lets developers add animations to Tiles.
There are two types in particular:
- Tween animations “create smooth transitions on changes to part of your layout,” like the goal/status ring often used by fitness apps
- Transition animations will “animate new or disappearing elements from the tile,” like when a weather forecast updates
Golf Tracking
Developers are now able to use data from the sensors via Health Services API, which unlocks the possibility of new activity and health-tracking apps. This will benefit the Wear OS with the integration of features like faster and more frequent heart rate data fetching and native golf tracking.
Google revealed that it has developed the Golf Tracking feature in collaboration with Samsung. The Wear OS 4 Golf Tracking to monitor the number of golf shots and the size of the golf swing. It will be a pretty impressive addon for those who love playing golf!
