Update: The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 has been unveiled. Read our full Galaxy Watch 4 hands-on review.
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 is steaming towards a release date, but it could be slightly delayed as the battle to port over to Wear OS heats up.
That’s the word from leaker Ice Universe, who was one of the first Twitter tipsters to hint that Samsung was looking to move to Wear OS.
In a single-tweet tip the user said that Wear OS ran “smoothy” on the Galaxy Watch 4, but the team was struggling to iron out bugs ahead of launch.
The new Wear OS makes the Galaxy Watch 4 very smooth, but there are also many bugs that engineers are working on.
— Ice universe (@UniverseIce) June 23, 2021
The information comes as renders leak of the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 4 (above). The sportier sub-brand is set to launch alongside the full Galaxy Watch 4 – and now we have an idea of how it could look. The renders are based on CAD files obtained by OnLeaks and Giznext.
There’s a good chance these stack up – especially as there seems little material difference from the Active 2. But as always, let's take everything with a pinch of salt and remember this is all the fun before a major device launch.
And that has caused speculation about how much we’ll see at the Samsung MWC event on 28 June, which was titled “New Watch Experience.”
It now seems more likely the watches will get a grander reveal at a big Samsung event on 3 August.
However, we may still get more details on Wear OS/Tizen unified OS at MWC.
We reached out to Google, which said it had no plans for any news or activity around Wear OS at MWC – so it seems that new information will be minimal.
However, as we opined last week – the two companies urgently need to add some clarity around Wear OS and how devices will be affected.
Last week we saw Qualcomm move to reassure users that 3100 and 4100 Snapdragon Wear devices will be able to run Wear OS 3.0.
But Google quickly moved to pour water on those comments, and said in a statement that:
"User experience is a top priority for us. We have not confirmed eligibility or timeline on whether any Wear OS smartwatch will update to the new unified platform. There are many technical requirements in order to run the unified platform that ensures all components of the user experience are optimized."
Whatever the answer, the two companies owe consumers more clarity over Wear OS 3.0.
We’ve seen the Ticwatch E3 launch without any information over whether it will receive the update. And as per Ice Universe’s comments, it seems perhaps Wear OS partners aren’t fully sure whether they will be able to upgrade.
How we test
James is the co-founder of Wareable, and he has been a technology journalist for 15 years.
He started his career at Future Publishing, James became the features editor of T3 Magazine and T3.com and was a regular contributor to TechRadar – before leaving Future Publishing to found Wareable in 2014.
James has been at the helm of Wareable since 2014 and has become one of the leading experts in wearable technologies globally. He has reviewed, tested, and covered pretty much every wearable on the market, and is passionate about the evolving industry, and wearables helping people achieve healthier and happier lives.