Android Wear might soon be rebranded to Wear OS

In a rare piece of promising news for Google’s Android Wear platform, a Redditor has stumbled upon a new icon and name for the wearables platform.

While setting up an Android Wear watch, Reddit user H3x0n found a new name, ‘Wear OS’ — a similar name to Apple’s ‘watchOS,’ and one that’s much more platform-agnostic than the smartwatch operating system’s current title.

Instead of the previous symbol, which is two oblong rectangles sandwiching a square over a blue circle, the new icon takes the shape of an abstract ‘W.’ It’s crafted out of two slashes and two dots, all in the typical Google blue, yellow, green and red colours.

9to5Google notes that with version 12.4 of the Android P Developer Preview, devices are referred to under the ‘Wear OS’ name, though the the current logo remains; however, with the latest beta, version 12.5, both the new name and logo are in use.

This news marks a show of interest in wearables from Google, which is significant because Android Wear has been languishing in recent years. Many brands have lost interest in the platform, and Android Wear devices were expelled from the Google Store after the Mountain View-based search giant nixed the inclusion of third-party manufacturers.

MobileSyrup has reached out to Google for comment on the potential rebranding, but it’s likely there won’t be any news on the matter until Google I/O 2018, if not a later date.

Source: Reddit Via: Android Police