According to an email Google sends to Wear OS developers, sideloading apps not available on the Play Store will be a lot more complicated starting March 10. You can no longer sideload apps from your phone using the Play Store -> Apps on your phone section on watches, making it nearly impossible to add unapproved apps to your watch without using developer-specific tools such as the Android Debug Bridge (ADB).
Developer Malcolm Bryant contacted us with the email he received. Google explains that the change is part of a step away from the old embedded app model that allowed developers to add Wear OS code to Android apps. By eliminating this distribution method, phone apps become smaller for everyone as people no longer need to download the Wear OS code to their phones, even if they don’t have Wear OS devices.
However, the ability to rely on the old app model is especially important for apps that aren’t available at all on the Play Store, affecting many of Bryant’s own projects. The change makes sideloading such apps much more difficult for regular people, as it requires activating development tools on smartwatches. They now have to enable developer options on their watches settings and push apps via ADB.
Moves like this shouldn’t be too surprising, given that Google is tightening control over its apps and devices. It only recently introduced new security measures that prevent a few Google apps from sideloading on Android 11, and getting Android apps on Chrome OS without using the Play Store has always been a big hassle. However, the change is quite understandable in the case of Wear OS. The company wants to decouple Wear OS apps from Android apps, and the new sideloading restriction appears to be a victim to crossfire. Many developers who publish their apps on the Play Store have already switched to the new app distribution model anyway, so this mainly affects apps that are distributed elsewhere.
