Google has brought in new app quality guidelines for its Wear OS 3, aimed at increasing the quality of all apps on the operating system.
The guidelines including “Basic compatibility for notifications”, including using “MessagingStyle notifications for conversations.”
Apps should also be properly formatted to both square and round display screens, and ensure “text is large and glanceable”.
The “Functionality” rules mandate a “watch APK that runs directly on the Wear OS device” and that the app “must mention Wear OS in its Google Play Store listing and contain at least one screenshot that depicts the Wear OS app experience.”
All Wear OS apps will need to meet all requirements from October 13, “to be published on Google Play.”
Google assures that “many developers are already meeting these requirements and won’t need to make many of these changes when migrating to Wear OS 3.0.”
