The Samsung Galaxy Watch is among the finest smartwatches round. Until 2021, Samsung’s smartwatches ran on a customized working system referred to as Tizen. But with the launch of the Galaxy Watch 4 collection, the corporate introduced a serious revamp to its working system for smartwatches.
It rebuilt the smartwatch interface based mostly on prime of Google’s Wear OS, bringing new options and higher app assist, all whereas retaining a familiar-looking interface. And as a lot as I get pleasure from utilizing Samsung’s smartwatches, I feel they could possibly be made even higher with the S Pen.
Why S Pen assist for the Galaxy Watch is sensible
While the Galaxy Watch is a feature-rich smartwatch, Samsung’s considerable ecosystem leaves room for yet one more technique of enter that might tie the expertise collectively extra cohesively: assist for the S Pen.
The S Pen has been pivotal in serving to Samsung’s flagship Note and Tab collection stand aside from the gang. Most of Samsung’s top-tier cell units now include stylus assist, together with the Galaxy S22 Ultra and Galaxy Z Fold 4. But the Galaxy Watch has been left within the mud.
I put collectively an inventory of the reason why I really feel S Pen assist on the Galaxy Watch is the lacking piece that Samsung wants to finish its ecosystem puzzle. It could look like an odd request at first, however I feel it’s precisely what Samsung wants.
Samsung’s stylus experience is unmatched
Samsung is a market chief in terms of units that assist stylus enter. Despite the transient relation of different manufacturers with Android tablets, Samsung has persistently been dedicated to units that sport the S Pen — whether or not within the type of the Galaxy Tab lineup or the Galaxy Note (now merged into the Galaxy S Ultra collection).
The firm’s experience and historical past with making units that characteristic S Pen assist offers it a good benefit — in making stylus-friendly units — in opposition to another model, together with Apple.
Similarly, Samsung is the front-runner amongst show producers, main with the largest share out there for smartphone OLED shows. It can be among the many main producers of smartwatch shows, whereas its greatest competitor within the battle for a extra binding ecosystem — Apple — has virtually outsourced all of its manufacturing. Samsung is a serious provider of shows for Apple, which is anticipated to procure over 80 million OLED shows from the Korean big for the upcoming iPhone 14 collection.
With its stronghold in markets for each premium OLED shows for smartwatches and shows that assist stylus enter, Samsung boasts a singular place from which it could possibly dominate the trade if it chooses so as to add S Pen assist to the Galaxy Watch.
Making essentially the most of mature smartwatch software program
There’s no denying that as fashionable person interfaces get cluttered with increasingly options, precision in pointing turns into crucial, particularly for energy customers. The S Pen is a marvel in pointing units, and assist on the Galaxy Watch escalates its place as essentially the most sought-after selection of enter strategies for customers.
Meanwhile, smartwatch manufacturers have spent appreciable time promoting watches as extensions of smartphones, permitting customers to perform extra trivial duties reminiscent of checking messages, vetting a caller’s worth, scrolling via information headlines, or interacting with voice assistants to manage good units. Until the smartphone is wholly dissolved with the tide of time and changed by extra immersive devices, the utility of — and our dependence on — smartwatches is barely more likely to enhance.
More importantly, the silicon on the coronary heart of Wear OS smartwatches is lastly beginning to mature after nearly a yr of neglect and sluggish efficiency. The not too long ago introduced Snapdragon W5 and W5+ Gen 1 smartwatch platforms from Qualcomm are based mostly on the far more subtle 4nm course of as in comparison with the 12nm fabrication means of its predecessor — the Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 4100+. This supplies for a 100% efficiency enhance on the newer chips.
Despite transferring to Snapdragon chips for almost all of its flagship units, Samsung continues to be utilizing proprietary Exynos chips on the Galaxy Wear lineup. Both the Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy Watch 5 collection are powered by the identical Exynos W920 chip which, though fabricated on a barely much less refined 5nm course of, options comparatively newer CPU cores.
If we assume this to be a linear development, smartwatches launching a number of years down the road could possibly be as highly effective as smartphones immediately — if not as highly effective because the units of the identical period. In such a situation, a extremely meticulous S Pen will probably be a worthy and invaluable enter choice.
Wireless gestures and broad compatibility
Samsung’s S Pen lineup has a number of methods up its sleeves, a lot of which don’t have anything to do with writing. Besides functioning as a tool for pointing and annotations, the S Pen works as a distant management for supported Galaxy smartphones or Tabs.
With the assistance of the inbuilt movement sensors, the S Pen can detect air gestures carried out by a person. Using these gestures remotely, you’ll be able to click on photos, navigate via slides in a presentation, management music and media playback, and even simply navigate via the One UI interface to open and use apps with out specializing in the show.
Taking these functionalities into consideration, the S Pen may additional improve the expertise on a Galaxy Watch via distant gestures, particularly when an individual is immersed in work on different Samsung units.
While the Galaxy S22 Ultra — the religious successor to the Note collection — encompasses a built-in S Pen, the corporate additionally sells the S Pen Fold Edition for the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and the Z Fold 4 smartphones. There’s additionally the S Pen Pro, which works with the Galaxy Tab collection and the Galaxy S21 Ultra and Galaxy S22 Ultra.
Samsung has already proven that it’s prepared to adapt the S Pen for foldable assist and extra superior options. What’s to cease it from including to the lineup with a Galaxy Watch model?
Samsung must stroll the additional mile
Despite reaching excellence in {hardware}, Samsung’s Galaxy ecosystem nonetheless trails behind Apple’s walled backyard. The most evident floor for this lag is the exclusivity that Apple ensures, primarily when it comes to the software program expertise. Unlike Samsung — which shares Android on smartphones and tablets, in addition to Windows on Galaxy Book notebooks with different producers — Apple’s ecosystem is webbed with the assistance of software program that it consciously limits to itself.
Besides their rules about possession and distribution of software program, Apple and Samsung differ in one other main respect. While Samsung is a worldwide chief with prowess in manufacturing compelling and groundbreaking {hardware}, Apple thrives as a design firm that creates instruments that improve folks’s lives. This primarily additionally means Samsung targets a special set of customers — those that need unequalled efficiency from their devices however with out giving up on the flexibleness of open and inclusive working programs reminiscent of Android and Windows.
While each situations are experiential, Samsung’s prosperity will depend on particular {hardware}. In such a case, S Pen assist on the Galaxy Watch can doubtlessly be the key weapon that ensures a unifying expertise throughout all Samsung units, creating the right ecosystem with none components from Apple.
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