Google to shut down Together Android Wear app on September 30, citing redundancy with Android Wear 2.0, according to Android Wear app update
Rita El Khoury / Android Police :
Context & Ripple Effects
Together was one of Google's first experiments in what smartwatches could do beyond notifications — watch-to-watch sharing of drawings, photos, and emoji — launched while Android Wear was still finding its footing after the push onto iPhone via the iOS companion app. Its shutdown notice arrives just before the platform's big reset: the final Android Wear 2.0 developer preview with iOS support, ahead of the February launch.
The stated reason — redundancy with Wear 2.0 — fits a longer Google pattern this corpus keeps documenting: the company prunes peripheral apps when core OS releases absorb their function, as later happened with the Android Things smart-home platform, and again in 2026 when Google begins removing Assistant from Android and Wear OS devices in favor of Gemini.
First-order effects
- Users of the Together app lose watch-to-watch drawing, photo, and emoji sharing on September 30, with whatever survives folded into Android Wear 2.0 rather than a standalone app.
Second-order effects
- Watchmakers and developers building on Android Wear get a signal that single-feature companion apps are expendable, pushing them toward capabilities shipped inside the OS itself.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — Android Things retired, Assistant stripped from Wear OS for Gemini — Google's wearable and smart-device strategy consolidates around fewer, OS-level surfaces, with standalone experiments treated as disposable scaffolding.
The trend: Google repeatedly sunsets standalone apps and platforms on its wearables and smart devices as each generation of the core OS absorbs or replaces their function.