Samsung has just given us a sneak peek of its latest One UI watch interface and some clues about the next Galaxy watch. So let’s break it down.
Google and Samsung recently announced that they were going to be pairing up to help redesign Wear OS. It’s going to have better battery performance. It’s going to be faster. It’s going to have support for more fitness sensors and some more third-party apps.
At Mobile World Congress, Samsung has just given us a first glimpse of the new One UI Watch interface. Now, this is the experience that’s going to sit on top of that new OS, and it’s going to make its debut on the next Galaxy Watch, which will be made available later in the summer. I’ll talk about that in just a moment.
Now, from these videos that Samsung has given us, the One UI Watch actually looks pretty googly. It kind of looks like exactly a hybrid of the current Wear OS and Tizen, which is the operating system that Samsung currently uses on its Galaxy watches.
In terms of features, expect the experience from the phone and the watch to be much more unified, similar to the way that the Apple Watch works. For example, once you install an app on your Galaxy phone, you’ll immediately see that same app on your watch, as long as there is a watch-compatible version available. The settings menu between the phone and the watch also looks more unified and consistent. If you have traveled multiple times from cities around the world, those time zones from your phone will also be reflected on your watch. And if you block a call or a message on your watch, that will also be blocked on your phone.
There will also be more third-party apps available, and some of those names that Samsung has given us that will be available at launch include Adidas Running, Strava, Spotify, and, of course, in terms of the first-party Google apps, we’re going to be getting Google Maps and YouTube Music, and all of those apps will be available to download from Google Play on the watch itself.
But the other nugget of information from this announcement that I’m actually really excited about is confirmation that we’re getting a new Samsung Unpacked event toward the end of summer. And we will definitely see a new Galaxy Watch. While we don’t know the name of that watch, I’m pretty sure it’s going to be called the Galaxy Watch 4 and potentially a new Galaxy Watch Active 3.
Now, we don’t have official images yet, but fortunately, it’s on the Internet. So there’s lots of leaks and rumors. Now, these images and renders have come out from a site called 91 Mobile. You can take a look, and you can see that same rounded watch face that Samsung is known for. These images look more like the Active 3 to me than the regular Galaxy Watch. Just because there is no physical rotating bezel, you might remember that the Active 2, the current watch that came out in 2019, has a haptic touch bezel that’s pretty much software-based, whereas the regular Galaxy Watch has that physical rotating bezel that you can use to navigate the interface and interact with the watch, and maybe at this unpacked event we’ll even see a Galaxy Z Fold 3. I don’t know, I’m crossing my fingers because a girl can definitely dream.
We’ve also seen a couple of leaks or supposed images of what this phone will look like, and I’m excited, so stay tuned for lots more information as Samsung reveals more information about that unpacked event in probably like a month or so now.
