How many times has Google chided and begged developers to support its "iterations of android OS" and hardware then kicked said stuff to the curb?
Android Auto is a mess and developers are right to stay away. WearOS is a stale product married to skanky hardware and is getting left behind. Outside of the major streaming apps Android TV apps must be made by Canadian sixth graders; excuse me grade sixers. Most of Googles apps haven't been fully customized for these environments and don't work so good.
They should be leading by example before asking others to do it.
Google: Lets start by getting rid of the Nest app from WearOS.
Pretty sure the strategy here is "have third party developers build it, and then everyone will show up to the party"
They're hoping they can kick-start another digital ecosystem distinct from mobile apps, and use that ecosystem as the foundation of the business initiative, akin to how lots of mobile apps make android as a business a winner. They can't really seem to figure out where developers "want" to go next so they threw a bunch of half-cocked ideas out there to see if a development ecosystem organically spins up anywhere, without seeming to figure out that a lot of developers currently view Google itself as one of the biggest risks to successful long term development.
That's not to downplay all the money and effort Google put into the Android platform or the ecosystem, but as they say trust is very easy to lose and very hard to earn so unfortunately for Google a lot of developers are more focused on how people keep getting wiped out overnight from what looks like robotic decisions
The sad thing (at least to me) is that some of these form factors are honestly interesting. I could see putting some pet projects onto them, which is exactly how I started doing mobile apps in the first place, not with the intention to commercialize just playing around with a fun project for a device that I had in my hand. Do you guys remember those old first generation Android developer phones? Fun times. If my memory is not going I think I even got one for free from Google because I built an app? Hell if they'd offer me a free watch for building an app for that platform I'd probably go off and spend the half a day to look at it. But they seem to be so focused on commercialization that they've almost forgotten that for a new platform launch you basically need to make it extremely attractive to both hobbyist and serious developers to kick off that ecosystem.
Many updates now that Android 12 Preview is official.
Speaking of which, maybe it's time for Google to put Android 11 on Chromecast with Google TV.
Just hope they don't build for the extremely narrow form factors emerging. Someone needs to tell these mfgs that narrow and tall is not productive. Looking at you Samsung. Bad enough your normal slates are too narrow and too tall. Now your Fold is even worse and unusable as a normal phone in single screen mode. Such a horrible trend.
Perhaps Google could start themselves by developing a WearOS app for YouTube Music .