So, we've got a significant platform update for Android Wear and two carefully created watches to showcase it. It's overdue. Most anyone who is familiar will tell you that Android Wear was getting a little stale and needed a watchOS-level update to freshen things up. And I think that describes the new update pretty well — what was lacking in software was addressed and delivered without going overboard and trying something that just isn't ready. The new Google has grown up a bit and no longer throws everything into the air and later collects what works to keep. Android Wear needed a refresh with the right features — not all the features. Of course, the watches themselves dominate the stage because they are required to have everything the new update offers right now. That will change and we'll see fully working builds of Wear 2.0 come to last year's hardware, and some of them will even work well with it. Others will have the software shoehorned in and we'll wish they had never been updated at all. That's how this whole Android thing works, though to a much lesser extent on watches than phones. We'll worry about that when it happens, but for now, I want to talk about the LG Watch Style and LG Watch Sport. Verizon is offering the Pixel 4a for just $10/mo on new Unlimited lines Like most of you, I haven't been able to actually use either. That means there are going to be plenty of things I can't say because I don't know. But I did have the luxury of spending a week talking with Flo and Andrew and peppering them with questions and off-the-wall requests to build a mental checklist and see how they measured up to my wants — and to see if I even cared at all. I just could never find a reason to love Android Wear, and the few times it did make my life better wasn't enough to justify having one more thing here that needed to be charged every night. That's changed, and I'm interested again. And not in the watch you think I would be interested in, and not for the reasons you might think, either. I'm really digging the LG Watch Style because to me, it looks good the way a watch should look good.

LG delivered exactly what they needed to deliver with the Watch Sport. It screams Wear 2.0. I don't hate the Sport. In fact, I want to talk about it first. Google did exactly what so many people wanted them to do with Wear 2.0 and added standalone functionality and payment processing to the platform. Then LG looked over at Samsung and built it in the shape of a Galaxy Gear. There is zero shame in that. There are no unique ideas left and Samsung looked at countless Casio and Timex watches to make the Gear S2 and S3. I'm sure someone at Timex looked at something when they built the first Ironman watch. This is how a thing we like gets refined with each new model and, if left to continue, everything will look exactly the same. People clamoring for a round Apple Watch with a sweet sporty rubber strap don't want one because it would look like a Gear S3. They want one because they think it would be better for them. They'll probably get one eventually. Feature-wise, the Sport ticks the right boxes, too. Standalone everything so you can set it up once then just be you and use it forever is what many of us were demanding. Use your GPS to find a Jamba Juice so you can pay for delicious drinks with your watch, then answer a phone call from your wrist so you can annoy everyone around you by yelling at your arm while they are trying to chill and slurp on a smoothie. We asked. LG delivered. And if you're not into it all, you don't have to use any of it (and can grab your smoothie and find somewhere else to drink it). The Sport should be a successful product for LG. One they didn't lose money on and one we remember as being pretty good a couple years from now. And really, that's the best any company can hope for at this point. But that Style. I think I'm going to get a Style.