One of the novelties brought to our watches in 2017 with the launch of Android Wear 2.0 was the Play at the store. Now we could install apps directly from our watch without needing a cell phone, but Google also removed an important feature that was present in the first generation of Android Wear: install applications on our watch from the mobile.
Until the arrival of Android Wear 2.0 (now Wear OS 2.0) when we installed a compatible application on our mobile, it was automatically installed on our watch, a behavior that Google has eliminated and that now returns four years later in an improved version in a new update of the Play at the store.
Application Play at the store for mobiles has activated a new selector that allows us decide on which devices we want to install an application, if we want to install this application on the mobile and / or the watch.
From your mobile
To install a clock app from our mobile, the first thing we need to do is locate a compatible application for Wear OS. Here we have two options: access the Wear category OS (Apps> Categories> Wear OS) or search and turn on the ‘Clock’ filter O “Clock faces”.
Once an application compatible with Wear OS is located, when we open its file, we will see that in the ‘Install’ button a new one appears to us scrolling menu. When we press we see that it allows us to select or uncheck if we want this app installed on our phone and / or our watch. By default now the apps will be installed on the phone and will watch.
If we already had an app installed on our mobile that we now also want to install on our watch, we will see a new drop-down called ‘Available on more devices’. When viewing its options, we will see that it will allow us to install said application on our watch.
With this new feature, we no longer have to manually install apps on our watch as was the case until now. Before, after installing an application on the mobile, we had to go to the Play Store of our mobile and install the application from the section ‘Phone applications’.
In Engadget Android | Google I / O 2021, all the new features: Android 12, Wear OS, Android Auto, Google Photos, Google Maps and more
