Google reportedly has Gmail and Calendar apps in the works for Wear OS
Google reportedly has Gmail and Calendar apps in the works for Wear OS
Enlarge / Pixel Watch colors and their default bands. There are three watch body colors here: black, silver and gold.
Google recently launched the Pixel Watch and breathed new life into Wear OS after years of neglect, but how serious is Google about its second swing in the smartwatch market , really ? Getting its flagship apps up and running on the platform would be a good sign of support, and a new report from 9to5Google says big hitters are on the way. The report states: "We learned that Google is testing both Gmail and Calendar for Wear OS. The experience was described to us as 'full', although we were unable to find out whether this involved creating events or composing new emails."
Creating portable apps would be a big step forward for the Google Workspace suite, which for some reason has been very tentative for the past eight years. Workspace doesn't even have apps for the Apple Watch, let alone Wear OS. Google's biggest productivity competitor, Microsoft, offers an Outlook app for both portable platforms.
Wear OS mirrors notifications from your smartphone. So for something like Gmail, you can always see and read a new Gmail message if it arrives in your notifications, and you can send a reply. You can even send a new email by voice if you know the address or have a contact, all without the app. What you can't do are most normal browsing tasks, like browsing your inbox and finding your old mail. It would also be nice to have watch-centric notification options, instead of just mirroring your phone settings.
A full calendar app would be nice too, but Wear OS already has a half-hearted calendar app called "Agenda", which seems to be built-in only and isn't on the Play Store. As you'd expect, this is a really basic app that only shows the calendar view of a Google calendar for the next three days.
Gmail is an odd omission as there are already a ton of similar apps on Wear OS. The Google Messages app displays a list of SMS messages in an inbox that you can tap and read. It works great, and a Gmail app with the exact same layout would be a good start; Google just needs to build it. Google Chat also doesn't have a portable app and would work well in a similar layout.
Really, the only Google productivity app for Wear OS is Google Keep. So Google has a lot of work to do to bring its Wear OS lineup of apps up to a reasonable level. Also, it's been seven years and the Apple Watch doesn't seem like a passing fad or anything, so Google might want to get into a Gmail app for that as well.
Enlarge / Pixel Watch colors and their default bands. There are three watch body colors here: black, silver and gold.
Google recently launched the Pixel Watch and breathed new life into Wear OS after years of neglect, but how serious is Google about its second swing in the smartwatch market , really ? Getting its flagship apps up and running on the platform would be a good sign of support, and a new report from 9to5Google says big hitters are on the way. The report states: "We learned that Google is testing both Gmail and Calendar for Wear OS. The experience was described to us as 'full', although we were unable to find out whether this involved creating events or composing new emails."
Creating portable apps would be a big step forward for the Google Workspace suite, which for some reason has been very tentative for the past eight years. Workspace doesn't even have apps for the Apple Watch, let alone Wear OS. Google's biggest productivity competitor, Microsoft, offers an Outlook app for both portable platforms.
Wear OS mirrors notifications from your smartphone. So for something like Gmail, you can always see and read a new Gmail message if it arrives in your notifications, and you can send a reply. You can even send a new email by voice if you know the address or have a contact, all without the app. What you can't do are most normal browsing tasks, like browsing your inbox and finding your old mail. It would also be nice to have watch-centric notification options, instead of just mirroring your phone settings.
A full calendar app would be nice too, but Wear OS already has a half-hearted calendar app called "Agenda", which seems to be built-in only and isn't on the Play Store. As you'd expect, this is a really basic app that only shows the calendar view of a Google calendar for the next three days.
Gmail is an odd omission as there are already a ton of similar apps on Wear OS. The Google Messages app displays a list of SMS messages in an inbox that you can tap and read. It works great, and a Gmail app with the exact same layout would be a good start; Google just needs to build it. Google Chat also doesn't have a portable app and would work well in a similar layout.
Really, the only Google productivity app for Wear OS is Google Keep. So Google has a lot of work to do to bring its Wear OS lineup of apps up to a reasonable level. Also, it's been seven years and the Apple Watch doesn't seem like a passing fad or anything, so Google might want to get into a Gmail app for that as well.
Enlarge / Pixel Watch colors and their default bands. There are three watch body colors here: black, silver and gold.
