Google recently announced that at the beginning of 2026 they will come definitively put aside the “Legacy” Watch Facesor those dials for Wear OS who have been made without the most recent Watch Face format.
Remaining on the subject of cuts, at the end of 2025 we will say definitively goodbye to the Android Instant Apps functionalityintroduced by the Mountain View giant back in 2016 but never really in vogue among the app developers.
Index:
- The old type of Watch Face of Wear OS will disappear at the beginning of 2026
- Google cemetery awaits the Android Instant Apps
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The old type of Watch Face of Wear OS will disappear at the beginning of 2026
Yesterday, through a post published on the Android developers’ blog, Google has made official new news related to the development of the dials (or Watch Faces) for Wear OS, the Mountain View giant’s wrist operating system.
During Google I/O 2023, Big G introduced the Watch Face format (developed in collaboration with Samsung) with the aim is to simplify the creation of new dials that could be customizable but at the same time efficient from an energy point of view.
This format, as anticipated at the opening, is now the only one supported as regards the dials of Wear OS and, as Google declares, “The developers will have to migrate the dials made by exploiting old formats to the new Watch Face format by January 14, 2026“.
Already from January 27, 2025 it is not possible to publish new “Legacy” quadrants (made with Androidx or with Wearable Support Library) but, at this moment, developers can continue to update these quadrants.
Below are the advantages for developers and for end users of the most recent Watch Face format:
- Simplified development – being a format “XML declarative“, It does not impose the execution of any code; to design a dial, developers can take advantage of visual design tools.
- Better performance – This format opens the doors to greater fluidity and better efficiency.
- Greater safety – Users’ data and privacy are guaranteed by intrinsic safety features in the entire process of development and use of the dial.
- Compatibility with future versions of Wear OS – the dials in the format Watch Face format They are the only ones supported by Wear OS 6, the new version of Wear OS who will arrive by the end of the year.
Google cemetery awaits the Android Instant Apps
At Google I/O 2016, Big G officially presented the Android Instant Appsan Android functionality that allows users to try an application or a game without the need to install the entire app on their device.
The functionality was then actually distributed to users at the beginning of 2017 and, while changing the name over the years (today it is called “Instant on Google Play”), has always maintained the same operation well or bad.
When we visit a link, the Google Play Store goes to check if there is an instant app for that site and performs it without completely installing the app on the device: in its place, on the device, a decidedly reduced portion of the app is kept. An example is the site of the Finnish evening newspaper Ilta-sanomat (just look for the name of the newspaper on Google and make a tap on the first link from your smartphone).
On the side of the users all beautiful, ok, but from the developers’ side? To provide one Android Instant Appdevelopers must create a special version of their app that has lower size to 15 MB and which allows the “quick installation” on the devices.
Such a requirement in dimensional terms is difficult to respect in all contexts and for all types of apps: consequently few developers have joined and added support for the instant apps.
According to what is reported by the colleagues of Android Authority, during the use of the most recent Build canary of Android Studio, the developer Leon Omelan discovered a notice that the following can be followed: “The support for the instant apps will be removed from Google Play in December 2025. The publication and all the bees of Google Play Instant will no longer work. Support for tools will be removed in Android Studio Otter Feature Drop“.
Google will provide an “official” notice on the matter, effectively formalizing the fate that seems to already be written for the Android Instant Appsdestined to reach many other apps and many other services of the Mountain View giant in the Google cemetery (which, as we said in April, could soon also welcome Google Play Games).
