Google Gem Nexus smartwatch might get unveiled on October 31st alongside Android 4.4

We have already heard Google is likely to officially lift the cover off Android 4.4 KitKat, and likely a Nexus 5 smartphone and Nexus 10 tablet, but it might have one more surprise - a smartwatch. A device codenamed Gem may launch alongside Android 4.4 KitKat on a massive event scheduled for October 31st, according to Android Police co-founder Artem Russakovskii.

The rumor sounds juicy, and comes in a series of scoops released by Russakovskii who writes that he has several rumors he “feel relatively confident about but either don't have visual evidence or a second confirmation, so I'm going to keep them to G+.”

The supposed Google Gem, if it indeed gets unveiled at the end of the month, might turn out to be a huge launch. After all, everyone is expecting a huge new niche to open with wearables in the forthcoming years, and all the big companies including Apple are by all visible clues exploring this niche.

The Google Gem rumor is an interesting one since it aligns well with one device we’ve heard about earlier - the Motorola xWatch. The xWatch was rumored to launch alongside the Moto X, but with Google owning Motorola, the parent company might well have decided the watch is worthy of a Google-wide release. This summer we heard about that xWatch integrating well with the Moto X, and if it gets a Google-wide release, our guess is that compatibility with be with a much wider set of Android devices.

Now, we’ve already seen the Samsung Galaxy Gear watch, and with too many compromises everyone seems to agree this is not what the smartwatch of the future looks like. Let’s hope that Google manages to surprise us with this one - it would be a well-kept secret as we’ve seen no huge leaks of it. In either case, keep in mind that this is just a rumor and the October 31st release date is a month old rumor.

source: Artem Russakovskii