Android Wear 2.0 Requires Play Store to Install; No More Auto-Install Apps on Your Watch

Gone are the days of auto-install on Google's smartwatches. Google's Android wear gets a major upgrade. Now, it is Android Wear 2.0

One of Google's Android Developer Advocates reported that Android Wear 2.0 will require completely standalone phone and watch apps. This abandons the system used since the first version of Android Wear that automatically installs Android Wear apps based on apps that are in your phone.

This is in reply to another developer in the Android Wear Developers Google+ Community:

"A Wear 2.0 user is required to visit the Play Store on their watch to install apps. There's no auto-install like on Wear 1.X. Wear 2.0 apps get full network access and can be installed completely separately from the handheld app so the focus is much more on standalone Wear apps than the handheld centric 1.X Wear apps."

Another developer states that this is contrary to what we've heard so far. It seemed like Android Wear 2.0 would bring support for standalone app installations for now, but Google doesn't necessarily require that apps would be installed this way.

Studies have been done by Android Wear that reportedly show that users would rather be able to independently control the apps on their phones and their watches. Apparently, users have a "distinct dislike" of auto-install.

A lot of the developers in this thread point out that the implications of this decision might be pretty negative for both developers and users alike, which means that if users want features that work between a phone app and a companion Wear app, they need to find and install the app on both devices separately. However, the Wear Play Store "puts apps that you have installed on your phone at the top of the list," an insider said.

But, to put a little positivity to all of this, we found out earlier that developers will be able to make apps specifically for the Android Wear watches, without the need to put a companion Android app if they don't want to. It's a lot less like having a companion watch app, but more like two phones sharing data.

One of many other concerns regarding this model is that developers MUST update their apps for Android Wear 2.0 devices. Apps built for Android 1.0 won't work since they won't get any updates beyond the initial install. This will probably get annoying for some apps that require to be installed on both phone and watch.

Unless these things change, Android Wear apps would probably fall from the Play Store because of developers simply not adopting the system. But maybe this is for the best, so that developers would start thinking about building use cases that are smartwatch-first and not just a tag-along auto-install app.