Samsung teams up with Google to challenge Apple Watch

While the rate of development in phones appears to be slowing lately, the rate of development in wearables has the potential to accelerate. In the wearables arena, nothing in the Android ecosystem compares to the Apple Watch in terms of quality and utility. So without a viable alternative for Android users, Apple is increasingly likely to continue gaining users. 

But finally, Samsung appears to be ready to make a serious attempt to re-enter the wearables market, teaming up with Google. Samsung is expected to unveil two new smartwatches on August 11th: the Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy Watch 4 Classic, both of which have been widely rumored. And with this new release, the wearables war between Samsung, Google and Apple takes a new shape as the company that stands to gain the most from the success of these watches is Google, not Samsung.

Despite its purchase of Fitbit and rumors that Google is working on a Pixel watch, Samsung will be the first to release Wear OS 3 smartwatches. They'll be based on Google and Samsung's collaboration, which was announced at Google IO earlier this year.

In other words, Samsung is abandoning its own Tizen watch OS in favor of contributing parts of it to a resurrected version of Google's dormant Wear OS. Both companies claim to have improved battery life, software experiences, and third-party app support.

Making a smartwatch that is better than the current Wear OS watch options, on the other hand, is embarrassingly simple. For years, Samsung has been doing it with its Tizen watches, which only work with Samsung devices and have been hampered by poor third-party app support.

It's not just a matter of raising the bar for Wear OS or Tizen. For Android users, there are low bars everywhere. OnePlus, RealMe, Oppo, Fitbit, and others have turned to proprietary, simplified platforms that lack the features you'd expect in a smartwatch today as Wear OS has stagnated.

As a result, the pressure is on both Samsung and Google to deliver a pair of smartwatches that are good enough to keep Android users who want a smartwatch from feeling left out. It's unlikely, however, that Samsung's first round of Wear OS 3 watches will be able to match the Apple Watch's ecosystem or integration.

Samsung, like Apple, will surely be attempting to develop an entire ecosystem of Android-related products and services. We don't know how tightly these watches will be tied to Samsung's ecosystem just yet, but it's possible that non-Samsung Android users will be turned off.