Do you think manufactures will skin Android Wear?

[I Can Be Your Hero]

Google to prevent OEMs from customizing the UI on Android Wear, Auto and TV | Android Central

That's a shame. Would have loved to see what HTC could do with a Sense Android Wear watch. Now all the watch UI's will be the same, the only differentiating factor will be the hardware.

One of the reasons why I chose the M8 was due to its Sense software, which I quite enjoy.

 

[SpookDroid]

I think this is a good move to prevent fragmentation. You want a different 'skin'? Then just download the app, which I'm sure will be available. But keep things underneath running exactly the same on every watch and you ensure a better experience for devs, which has always been a touchy issue with Android.

 

[bunique4life05]

Android wear is too simplistic in design and functionality that OEM skins would be unnecessary. Android wear OS is so minimalist is design and functionality that skinned version would find no significant changes to warrant the extra memory,storage, and CPU computing need for skinned ui. Android wear is not robust OS like Android(the of purpose Android Wear us why OS does not need to be robust) which has a vast ray of design and functionality commands that can be changed by the OEM.

Furthermore with so many computing possibility with Android the hardware expands with Android but Android Wear devices are just hub to mirror what smartphone is sending. The Android Wear needs to be simple and hardware growth(cpu,memory,storgage) limited because Android wear devices are about glance able info and hardware design for appearance.

OEM skins on Android Wear would bring same issues that plague Android smart phones and tablets with OEM skins. The problems are software updates to fix bugs, UI crashes and UI latency issues. These problems are completely unacceptable in Android Wear platform because Android is supposed mirror timeless functionality of a traditional watch. Traditional watches all tell time same and just work. You different hardware designs but all function basically the same and that is purpose of Android Wear. OEM's can add differentiation more importantly in hardware design and secondly watch faces. Android Wear would see no significant benefit for oem skin because the platform is that of traditional watch. The success of traditional watch is not in how to change functions of telling time but how it looks and feels while you are not keeping track of time.

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