14 DAY TRIAL // Apple is currently the world’s number one smartwatch manufacturer, and the Apple Watch not only that leads the wearable market, but it does the whole thing in a way that’s nearly impossible to beat in the short term.
The bigger problem with the Apple Watch is that it’s limited to Apple’s closed garden, so for the time being, smartwatch options in the Android ecosystem are still very limited.
While some people are still dreaming about an Apple Watch for Android, Google itself wanted at some point to step into this market and launch something that could have been an Apple Watch killer in all regards.
A report from BI reveals that back in 2016, the search giant was this close to launching its very own smartwatch, only that the unveiling was abandoned at the very last minute.
Project killed at the very last minute
By the looks of things, the debut was supposed to take place at the Made by Google event in 2016 when the company also took the wraps off the Google Pixel and Pixel XL, but the smartwatch was eventually canceled because of several reasons.
First, it was the design language, as Google wanted a more consistent approach across its entire product portfolio. Rick Osterloh, Google’s hardware chief, was the one who made the decision, also complaining that some essential features, including syncinc, weren’t working as smoothly as expected.
Osterloh believed that launching a smartwatch still requiring so much polishing would have eventually affected Google’s hardware brand altogether, so he decided to ditch the project entirely.
Google’s smartwatch, which didn’t have a name, eventually reincarnated as LG Watch Style and LG Watch Sport, according to the same report, as the search giant worked together with LG to make this happen. The two were so close to launching the device that even the product photoshoot was done before the Made by Google event in 2016.
For what it’s worth, it appears that Google still isn’t ready to launch its own Google-branded smartwatch. The upcoming event when the new Pixel lineup will go live won’t witness the debut of a smartwatch, the same source adds, so for now, the only options in the Android ecosystem continue to be the ones belonging to third parties.