Google Testing WearOS 5.1 on PixelWatch2, Reportedly Based on Android 15
TapTechNews August 9th news, the tech media AndroidAuthority published a blog post today (August 9th), reporting that Google has been testing the WearOS 5.1 system on the PixelWatch2 smartwatch, and it is estimated to be based on the upcoming Android 15 system.
WearOS
WearOS is an operating system for smartwatches. Although it is also based on the open source code base (AOSP) like the Android system, it follows a different release rhythm.
Google released WearOS 3 based on the Android 11 system in May 2021, which was a full 8 months later than Android 11.
Google released WearOS 4 based on the Android 13 system in May 2023, which was 1 year later than the Android 13 system; and the WearOS 5 released this year is also based on the Android 14 system released last year.
WearOS 5.1
Compared to the Android system, the WearOS based on the Android system does not receive high attention. However, a notable change this time is that WearOS 5.1 is reported not to be based on Android 14 but on Android 15.
TapTechNews quoted the media's point of view, which means that Google has completely decoupled (decoupled) the underlying Android version and the WearOS version.
Decoupling in computer science and software engineering refers to reducing the dependence between different parts of a system so that each component of the system can be developed, maintained, and evolved relatively independently.
The main goal of decoupling is to reduce the tight coupling between components to improve the flexibility, maintainability, and scalability of the system.
It is reported that Google has long advanced this project. Google's trunk stable version project has created a single main development branch for all Android systems. The exact applications, APIs, features, and behaviors in the Android build not only depend on the time of compilation and build, but also on which build Flag and Android configuration (aconfig) Flag are enabled.
The build ID of the WearOS 5.0 beta starts with AW2A, while the current build ID of the WearOS 5.1 beta starts with AP4A, which is consistent with the way of identification after the trunk stable version in regular Android builds.