smartwatches

Pre-installed apps, a.k.a bloatware, is one of the banes of smartphone life. Given its tight control over the out of the box experience, Apple devices are relatively free of "value-added apps" from most OEMs or carriers. That said, Apple does ship with a few utility apps that not all users may find value in. That's true even for Apple Watches but that will soon change when watchOS 6 is released, allowing users to remove some but not all built-in Apple Watch apps.

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Google hasn't exactly been the most consistent when it comes to its wearable platform. It rebranded Android Wear to Wear OS and changed the way the OS looked and behave. But after a brief period of activity, it let things slide again. Last month it attempted to revive interest in the platform with its new Tiles UI. Unfortunately, the initial rollout was incomplete and it's only now that a feature enabling Tiles to be moved, added, and removed from your phone is rolling out little by little.

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Owners of the Samsung Galaxy Watch, Gear Sport, and Gear S3 are in for a treat in the very near future as the company brings One UI to the bunch. As we've had experience with each of the devices on the list as well as Samsung's One UI on smartphones of several sorts, today we're exploring the company's approach in this land of wearables. Once we get the update sent to these devices in our review shop, we'll be set for updated reviews, as well.

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Just when you thought Google has mostly forgotten about the other incarnations of Android, it revealed a few updates related to those just before Google I/O next week. Wear OS, formerly known as Android Wear, isn't getting a major overhaul again but it is getting a new major feature called Tiles. And more than just the advanced announcement, it seems that Google is also pushing the feature to users in advance as well.

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Now that non-iPad tablets are practically gone, the next tech market that is being eyed with uncertainty is the smartwatch segment. Straddling the fine line between fitness tracker and smartphone, many aren't able to make heads or tails of what smartwatches should really be. The good news for players in this field is that a recent study shows that the market grew by 48% since last year. The bad news for Google is that it is barely part of that growth.

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Garmin today refreshed its Forerunner line of fitness tracking smartwatches from top to bottom, launching five new devices in the series at a range of different price points. There seems to be a bit of something for everyone here, whether you're looking for a relatively straightforward device that offers typical fitness tracking capabilities or you're looking for a top-end smartwatch that has a more densely packed feature list.

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While the smartphone world was going crazy over foldable phones at MWC 2019 last February, ZTE subsidiary nubia was presenting an alternate and equally eccentric smartphone. A smartphone most people will call a smartwatch. The nubia Alpha, however, is neither and both, making it a tad difficult to really classify. nubia, however, does call it a wearable smartphone and on Thursday it will invite the brave to try that out for themselves. If they have $450 to spare, that is.

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Unlike on smartphones where you basically only have two racehorses, the smartwatch market is teeming with choices. That's true even for the choice of smart assistants on your wrist. While Siri and Google Assistant do have the lion's share of the market, there are quite a number of wearables that lean towards Amazon's helper. Xiaomi-branded Amazfit Verge is one of those and it has just received an update that brings Alexa to your wrist and more.

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Samsung's and Huawei's foldable phones aren't coming until next month at the earliest but nubia's bendable phone might already beat them to the punch. Granted, the nubia Alpha from ZTE's now independent sub-brand isn't really competing in the same space. Rather than a ridiculously tall smartphone that can wrap around your wrist, it might be better to think of the nubia Alpha as a wristband that has a smartphone built-in.

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The Apple Watch series 4 launched with the world's first ECG monitor in a smartwatch. However, it wasn't widely available outside the US since Apple still had to acquire permissions from various countries. Last week, it finally rolled it out to parts of Europe and Hong Kong and, in just the span of a few days, it has already turned a doubter into a believer after saving his life.

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It seems that Apple continues to have battery headaches but this time it isn't about iPhones. You'd think that considering their size, Apple Watch batteries would have very little problems other than having to be recharged every day. It turns out, however, that some have experienced potential safety hazards due to swollen Apple Watch batteries and they are now taking Apple to court for allegedly knowing about the problem and still pushing through with sales of the wearable device.

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The Apple Watch saves lives, as numerous anecdotes have repeatedly proven. And that was back when the smartwatch just had the basic set of sensors like a heart rate monitor. The Apple Watch 4 significantly stepped up Apple's efforts to corner a niche market but its limited availability meant it couldn't really do much for users outside the US. Now that the Apple Watch 4 has been certified, it's now possible to make use of its ECG sensor in 19 countries across Europe as well as in Hong Kong.

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