Wear OS 4 to bring golf, health and animated tile upgrades to Google Pixel Watch and Samsung Galaxy Watch5 series

Last week, Google briefly touched upon Wear OS 4 during its I/O 2023 keynote, the first major update for the platform in two years. While the company confirmed that the update would head to the Pixel Watch and unspecified Galaxy Watch models later this year, it did not provide too many insights into how Wear OS 4 would differ from its predecessor.

Subsequently, the company outlined more planned changes, including animated tile support. For example, Google reports that it will Wear OS 4 will be able to show the progress of fitness rings in real time without delving into a dedicated app. For reference, these animations are possible because of Jetpack Tiles Library v1.2, which is available to Wear OS 3. Hence, this functionality could also be headed to smartwatches ineligible for a Wear OS 4 upgrade.

In a similar vein, there will be new Spotify and WhatsApp tiles, as well as equivalents for Google Calendar and Gmail. Meanwhile, Google will improve Health Connect integration within Android and Wear OS. Going forwards, the company will roll Health Connect into Play Services, deprecating its Play Store listing in the process. Moreover, Wear OS 4 will automatically record the number of golf swings and will even be capable of distinguishing the type of swing used. 

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