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One UI 8 Watch will get a Shortcuts app, and here's what it does (APK teardown)
May 8, 2025
- Samsung is adding a new app to One UI 8 Watch, called Shortcuts.
- An Android Authority teardown has revealed that this will let you add app shortcuts to your watch’s home screen.
- Apps can be added to your wearable’s home screen in 2×1 and 2×2 tiles.
Samsung is expected to launch the One UI 8 Watch update later this year, bringing new features and tweaks to its Galaxy Watch line. Now, it looks like the company is working on a more convenient way to open apps on your wrist.
An APK teardown 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.
Samsung is adding a new app called Shortcuts to One UI 8 Watch. We dug into this app (version 1.0.00.18) and discovered that it will let you add apps as shortcuts to the smartwatch’s home screen. You can view the strings below.
<string name="shortcut_double_tile_default_title">Select apps</string>
<string name="text_app_icon">App Icon</string>
<string name="text_get_started">Get started</string>
<string name="text_select_apps">Select apps</string>
<string name="text_tap_to_add_apps">Tap to add apps.</string>Further digging reveals that you can add apps to the watch’s home screen in two tile sizes (2×1 and 2×2). We were also able to obtain images of these two tile sizes, seen below.
Accessing apps via the watch’s home screen would be extremely convenient. This new approach would save a few seconds compared to launching apps via the app drawer. We hope you can add multiple tiles to the home screen, just in case you’ve got more than a few frequently used apps.
This isn’t our first look at One UI 8 Watch, though. We got a peek at leaked One UI 8 Watch app icons yesterday (May 7), as well as a closer look at Gemini on the new software.