Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 and Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 Classic marked a change of strategy for the South Korean manufacturer in the smartwatch sector as well as the return to Google’s Wear OS – however, customized with One UI Watch – thanks to which it is possible to install and take advantage of the dedicated version. Big G’s Gboard keyboard with the attached voice-to-text engine.
Recently we have seen how Samsung has done a great job with the new smartwatch and, above all, as the return to Wear OS has reopened Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 and Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 Classic doors apps and services Google, from Google Play Store.
This change makes life easier for developers, who thus have to create (and update) only one version of their apps, but also and above all for users, who can install all the applications on the Play Store, starting with those of Big G.
One of the few sore points of Samsung’s latest smartwatches highlighted in the review – the one we tested was the Classic model, but the substance does not change – consisted of using Bixby instead of Google Assistant.
In addition to its own voice assistant, to respond to notifications, Samsung also used its own keyboard with the attached Samsung text-to-speech engine. If these are not to your liking, however, do not despair: from the Google Play Store it is possible to install the Gboard keyboard for Wear OS on the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic.
The advantages are soon said: first of all, Gboard presents the QWERTY layout, while that of Samsung is locked to the T9 (which however on such small screens can be useful); secondly, Google Speech, or Big G’s voice-to-text function, is far superior to Samsung’s counterpart.
