{"id":990974,"date":"2026-05-28T22:12:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T22:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/990974\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T22:12:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T22:12:23","slug":"google-has-some-smart-new-ideas-for-its-contacts-wear-os-ui","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/990974\/","title":{"rendered":"Google has some smart new ideas for its Contacts Wear OS UI"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img class=\"e_Jg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"eager\"  title=\"Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro Wear OS apps\"  alt=\"A Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro displays its App Library including Google and Samsung native apps.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Samsung-Galaxy-Watch-5-Pro-Wear-OS-apps-scaled.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Kaitlyn Cimino \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n<p>TL;DR<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Google Contacts is trying out a new interface for several screens in its Wear OS app.<\/li>\n<li>The new favorites view adopts a grid populated with large photos.<\/li>\n<li>The contacts detail view similarly gets a big photo, matching the app\u2019s Wear OS tile.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A good <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/gemini-neural-expressive-android-app-hands-on-3668985\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">user interface<\/a> is important any time we\u2019re using software, but it\u2019s arguably most important on those screens that are the trickiest to interact with \u2014 and you probably won\u2019t find many people disagreeing that smartwatches belong at the top of that list. When devs are trying to make apps as usable as possible on such tiny displays, every decisions matters. Today we\u2019re checking out some big progress in just that department for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/google-contacts-profiles-3651085\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Google Contacts<\/a> on Wear OS.<\/p>\n<p>Looking through version 1.106.0.914792851-release-wear of the Contacts app, we\u2019ve spotted some significant, photo-first changes to how your watch shows your contacts.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"e_Jg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"contacts favorites ui 1 old\"  alt=\"contacts favorites ui 1 old\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/contacts-favorites-ui-1-old.jpg\"\/><img class=\"e_Jg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"contacts favorites ui 1 new\"  alt=\"contacts favorites ui 1 new\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/contacts-favorites-ui-1-new.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>On the left there, you can see the old UI for displaying your favorite contacts, with names taking up the majority of the watch\u2019s screen. But this new favorites layout on the right not only fits more contacts on the screen at once, but does so with nice, big, easy-to-identify photos.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Don\u2019t want to miss the best from Android Authority?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/andauth.co\/AAGooglePreferredSource\" class=\"e_do\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\"><img class=\"e_Jg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"google preferred source badge light@2x\"  alt=\"google preferred source badge light@2x\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/google_preferred_source_badge_light@2x.png\"\/><img class=\"e_Jg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"google preferred source badge dark@2x\"  alt=\"google preferred source badge dark@2x\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/google_preferred_source_badge_dark@2x.png\"\/><\/a><img class=\"e_Jg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"contacts favorites ui 2 old\"  alt=\"contacts favorites ui 2 old\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/contacts-favorites-ui-2-old.jpg\"\/><img class=\"e_Jg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"contacts favorites ui 2 new\"  alt=\"contacts favorites ui 2 new\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/contacts-favorites-ui-2-new.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The same design philosophy behind that change also seems to be impacting the contact detail screen. Instead of the text-heavy old look you see on the left, Contacts is embracing a new layout that prioritizes photos and actionable buttons. If that look feels familiar to you, there\u2019s probably good reason \u2014 Google\u2019s setting it up to match the layout Contacts uses for its Wear OS tile:<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"e_Jg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"contacts favorites ui tile\"  alt=\"contacts favorites ui tile\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/contacts-favorites-ui-tile.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>While some of you may prefer the way the old UI emphasized the contact\u2019s actual phone number on the details screen, we\u2019d argue that this overall represents a big step forward in terms of usability.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u26a0\ufe0f<\/strong> An <strong>APK teardown<\/strong> helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you for being part of our community. Read our\u00a0<a class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/android-authority-comment-policy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" data-stringify-link=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/android-authority-comment-policy\/\" data-sk=\"tooltip_parent\">Comment Policy<\/a> before posting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kaitlyn Cimino \/ Android Authority TL;DR Google Contacts is trying out a new interface for several screens in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":990975,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3160],"tags":[2240,1685,867,70877,14342,53,16,15],"class_list":["post-990974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-gadgets","tag-authority-insights","tag-gadgets","tag-google","tag-google-contacts","tag-google-wear-os","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116654503174533407","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=990974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/990975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=990974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=990974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=990974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}