Samsung has introduced the watch face functionality for smartwatches, which provides an interactive function that provides easy access to different settings without going to multiple menus. After its success, Google has also adapted and brought the same functionality under WearOS; it has brought it with WearOS 4.
Now the company is focusing on making it more advanced and more attached to the ecosystem by making it compulsory for a developer to bring their application in XML format. With this implantation, the watches will need less maintenance and get better optimizations in fewer updates than those using the Jetpack watch Face libraries.
For more clarification, Google has stated that “the Wear OS platform takes care of the logic needed to render the watch face so you can focus on your creative ideas, rather than code optimizations or battery performance.”.
The watch faces created using WFF are designed for the co-processor, which will ultimately lead to better optimization that targets battery efficiency. Along with the better performance and battery life, Google has also informed developers that if you want to get your application working more smoothly, you should have to design it in the watch face format. In this way, the company has made it necessary that upcoming releases of WearOS will require the watch face format.
More specifically, Google has separated the older watch format, which is with Jetpack watch face library or wearable support, instead of only supporting some basic watch complications like battery, app shortcuts, unread notification count, date, time, day of week, and world clock.
On the announcement of the watch face format, some developers have questioned how they will create the useful watch complication without in-app features or complex animation such as HR monitor icons, which may not translate to the watch face format type. It seems that Google is pushing them to create simple watch faces with limited options. However, the watch face format is currently less than a year old, so it is to be seen if the future version will allow more customization for developers or if Google will keep it with limited options.
