Nearly four years after someone first requested it
Wear OS has come a long way since its initial launch as “Android Wear.” Google’s newest software came from a partnership with Samsung, building what many see as the best wearable experience on the market yet. We’re still waiting for other manufacturers to launch Wear OS 3-equipped smartwatches, but when they do hit the market, they’ll be equipped with a much-anticipated way to control your screen orientation.
If you’ve ever found the “traditional” way of wearing your watch uncomfortable, you aren’t alone. Although Wear OS allows for left or right-handed users to swap the wrist position of their gadget, you have to deal with how the buttons line up on your wrist. If you’re wearing your watch on the left-hand side, the buttons usually appear on the right of the watch. If you’re wearing it on your right wrist, you likely have to deal with the buttons pushing into your arm.
If you prefer to keep those pesky buttons on the opposite side of their default location, you’re typically out of luck. It’s an issue that users have been dealing with for years, with a feature request for screen orientation languishing on Google’s issue tracker since 2018. After nearly four years without a single word, the company unexpectedly marked the thread as “Fixed” today (via 9to5Google), along with a quick note about its availability:
Our development team has implemented the feature you have requested and will be available on future new devices.
Although Google has yet to explain how it’ll work, some sort of toggle or optional setting will presumably flip the display to its opposite side, along with reversing the button order and the direction of the scroll wheel. Unfortunately, that hardware layer might explain the specific wording used here. Based on today’s update, it seems unlikely that this ability will arrive in a software patch. Rather, it sounds like all-new hardware is required for the screen orientation to function correctly, making this tool locked to “future new devices” rather than pre-existing ones.
That might come as a disappointment to some, especially anyone who recently bought a Galaxy Watch4 over the holidays. Still, if you have been holding out for a non-Samsung wearable running Google’s latest software — like, say, a potential Pixel Watch — it’s good to know this is in the works.
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