Samsung joins hands with Google to give competition to Apple

The news, announced at the Google developer conference in California, meaning the Korean tech giant will use Google's Wear OS for its upcoming Samsung Galaxy smartwatches instead of its own Tizen platform.

We’re combining the best of @wearosbygoogle and @SamsungMobile Tizen into a unified wearable platform. ⌚ Apps will start faster, battery life will be longer and you'll have more choice than ever before, from devices to apps and watch faces. #GoogleIO pic.twitter.com/vj2aYZD81x

— Google (@Google) May 18, 2021

Google Wear project director Bjorn Kilburn said, "We're bringing the best of Wear and Tizen into a single, unified platform,"

"By working together we have been able to take strengths of each and combine them into an experience that has faster performance, longer battery life and more of the apps you love available for the watch."

By this collaboration, all device markets will be able to use this platform, creating an ecosystem that could challenge Apple.

For the time being, Apple is the longtime leader in the smartwatch segment with about a third of the market.

Samsung vice president Janghyun Yoon said in a separate statement the South Korean firm "constantly pursues new ways to meet the ever-changing needs of consumers," adding that "That's why we decided to team up with Google... to bring the best of our platforms together into one unified experience."

Google's wearable rethink comes in three parts.

Firstly, the company promised that the new platform would feature apps that launch 30% faster and longer battery life. There was no specific metric for battery life, but Google and Samsung cited taking better advantage of low-power cores in the system-on-a-chip.

Part two, Google is working on a suite of watch-optimized first-party apps to run on the new platform, which is long overdue. For instance, Google says there will be turn-by-turn in Maps, and support for offline music in YouTube Music. Spotify will add this feature in a future update.

Meanwhile, Google Pay will get a full redesign for watches that includes support for tap-and-pay in 26 countries, up from 11 in the current version.

Lastly, there's Fitbit and its premium health and fitness service, which Google inherited when it acquired the company last year.

Previously, Google offered a glimpse of its planned AI search tool which it aims to deploy more complex tasks across multiple languages.

With the Multitask Unified Model, the company will be able to better understand much more complex questions and needs.