Google Releases Gmail and Calendar Apps for Wear OS, Making Email Triage from Your Wrist Easier
Google has recently launched its Gmail and Calendar apps for Wear OS, allowing users to conveniently manage their email and schedule directly from their smartwatches. The introduction of these apps aims to enhance the user experience and provide more flexibility for those using Wear OS devices.
The visual design of the apps is simple yet effective. The Google Calendar app displays the user’s schedule in a Schedule feed, with each event presented as a card that includes background graphics. Tapping on an event opens up a details view, providing information such as location, notes, and the option to RSVP. Notably, the Calendar app also supports Google Tasks entries, enabling users to mark tasks as complete and view upcoming tasks through a dedicated Wear OS Tile feature.
Moving on to the Gmail app, users will find a slightly unconventional design, with a hamburger button present to access folders and labels. Despite the lack of physical corners on smartwatches, the placement of the button in the top-left corner still allows for easy navigation. The main screen of the app presents a good amount of information, but not overly cluttered. Upon tapping on a message, users can view the sender, recipient, and date details in full. To read the email body, users may need to tap on More, as the body is not automatically expanded. However, this design decision helps ensure that important actions, such as archiving, deleting, or replying to emails, are easily accessible without excessive scrolling.
It’s worth mentioning that both Gmail and Calendar apps on Wear OS do not currently offer in-app interfaces to create new emails, events, or tasks. Instead, users must utilize Google Assistant and voice input for such actions. While composing lengthy emails might not be practical on a small smartwatch screen, having the option to use the on-screen keyboard for finer details could be helpful in public or semi-private spaces. Therefore, incorporating touch-friendly creation workflows could be a beneficial addition to future updates of these apps.
With the introduction of these apps, Google Workspace is now quite well-represented on Wear OS, offering users a comprehensive range of productivity tools. However, there is still room for improvement, and users may look forward to future updates that bring Chat and Voice apps to Wear OS, providing seamless access to conversation history and voice commands.
Overall, the release of Gmail and Calendar apps for Wear OS is long-awaited and welcomed by users. These apps successfully distill key actions into a user-friendly format suitable for small smartwatch screens. While it may have been ideal for these apps to be available from the initial launch of Wear OS 3, the timing of their release ensures that users can now enjoy improved email and scheduling management on their wrist.
