Google’s Wear OS will add support for 3rd-party Tiles
January 7, 2021
Something that has been requested by both developers and users alike may soon be available on Wear OS devices. Google is reportedly working on letting third-party developers create their own custom Tiles for their apps that are available on the Wear OS platform. Currently, only Google’s built-in apps are allowed to have official Tiles but a new code change posted on the Android Open Source Project might change all that. And while there are some not-so-official workarounds available, an official one from Google would be better of course.
What you need to know
Third-party Android developers will soon be able to create custom Tiles for their Wear OS apps.
A new Tiles API commit has been posted to the Android Open Source Project.
Currently, Tiles are limited to Google s own Wear OS apps.
In May 2019, Google finally added widget-like Tiles to Wear OS. Unfortunately, however, Google still hasn t added support for custom third-party Tiles to its wearable platform. Thankfully, it now looks like this could finally change later this year.
The folks over at
9to5Google have spotted a code change that was recently posted to the Android Open Source Project, which confirms Google is working on a Wear Tiles API. As the name clearly implies, the Wear Tiles API will make it possible for Wear OS developers to create custom Tiles for their apps.
Google is reportedly going to make it possible for third-party Android developers to create their own tiles for their Wear OS app. When Tiles Wear OS’ widget-like access to apps first launched, it only worked for Google’s own apps like Fit and the weather app.
Now, however, a new code change in the Android Open Source Project spotted by
9to5Googlepoints to Google working on a ‘Wear Tiles API,’ which will allow Wear OS developers to create their own custom Tiles.
Initial commit of Wear Tiles API.
This checks in the app-side of the Wear Tiles API. Tests (and testing libs) have not yet been added, but will come in a future CL. This version exists really to start kicking off API reviews.
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