4 ms·

Interesting they are still going with round. Most of the UI shots look awkward on a round screen with anything not in the very center getting cut off a bunch.

floppydive 1mo ago
Google is an ad company. They don't actually want to lose any of the phone screen time on something with lower revenue real estate.
partiallypro 1mo ago
The round just looks better and far fewer people actively use the interface on the watch other than looking at the time or marking a workout. I think the squircle watches like Apple's look odd.
mvanbaak 1mo ago
I was discussing this with my wife 10 minutes before I saw this comment. watch / time / clock looks and works so much better on a round interface. notifications / text / buttons look and work so much better on a square interface. So, use a watch on one wrist (round, good looking, etc), and a smartwatch on the other wrist (square, functional, 'computer') There's no way you can mold the two together into one 'have it all' form factor
- Zigurd 1mo ago
  There are a lot of mechanical watches that have rectangular watch faces, some of them very attractive and expensive.
Zigurd 1mo ago
In some basement at Google there's a group of traumatized engineers who were flogged mercilessly until they made a smart watch UI work on a round watch face because...??? I've developed Wear OS apps in the amount of effort that it must've taken to get to a sort of alright implementation of a UI that still depends on a lot of lists of things seems crazy to me.
astr0n0m3r 1mo ago
It's disappointing that this is downvoted when the Apple Watch is an obvious example that rectangular works and is winning. When it comes to watches, I have to admit that I don't understand 99% of what is sold.
- usern20260720 1mo ago
  The Apple Watch design is probably horrible (at least I am ashamed of mine) but they get away with it because the design decisions are reasonable (bigger screen real estate) and the hardware and functionalities are ok. Battery is very limited but charges fast, etc
  - zuhsetaqi 1mo ago
    That’s called making the right trade offs and I think Apple especially has a very good track record of making the right trade offs in their products.

floppydive 1mo ago

Google is an ad company. They don't actually want to lose any of the phone screen time on something with lower revenue real estate.

partiallypro 1mo ago

The round just looks better and far fewer people actively use the interface on the watch other than looking at the time or marking a workout. I think the squircle watches like Apple's look odd.

mvanbaak 1mo ago

I was discussing this with my wife 10 minutes before I saw this comment. watch / time / clock looks and works so much better on a round interface. notifications / text / buttons look and work so much better on a square interface. So, use a watch on one wrist (round, good looking, etc), and a smartwatch on the other wrist (square, functional, 'computer') There's no way you can mold the two together into one 'have it all' form factor

Zigurd 1mo ago
There are a lot of mechanical watches that have rectangular watch faces, some of them very attractive and expensive.

Zigurd 1mo ago

In some basement at Google there's a group of traumatized engineers who were flogged mercilessly until they made a smart watch UI work on a round watch face because...??? I've developed Wear OS apps in the amount of effort that it must've taken to get to a sort of alright implementation of a UI that still depends on a lot of lists of things seems crazy to me.

astr0n0m3r 1mo ago

It's disappointing that this is downvoted when the Apple Watch is an obvious example that rectangular works and is winning. When it comes to watches, I have to admit that I don't understand 99% of what is sold.

usern20260720 1mo ago
The Apple Watch design is probably horrible (at least I am ashamed of mine) but they get away with it because the design decisions are reasonable (bigger screen real estate) and the hardware and functionalities are ok. Battery is very limited but charges fast, etc
- zuhsetaqi 1mo ago
  That’s called making the right trade offs and I think Apple especially has a very good track record of making the right trade offs in their products.