Omate TrueSmart “will not ship” with Google Play preloaded

The Omate TrueSmart launched on Kickstarter with promise of being the “smartwatch 2.0.” While the specs may not be top of the line, the folks at Omate have essentially offered a full-smartphone for your wrist. And just to clarify, the TrueSmart does have cellular connectivity. Along with the specs, the Omate was said to be running Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean with the Omate UI 1.0 and according to the Kickstarter page, it would be the “world’s 1st smartwatch 2.0 with Google Play App Store.”

Well, it seems that is not actually the case. The watch will be launching with Android 4.2.2 and the Omate user interface, but instead of the Google Play Store there will be the OStore for your app needs. The folks at Omate were pretty good about status updates while the project was ongoing, however those have shifted to a slow crawl since the Kickstarter period ended. That by itself is not all that bad as the backers can assume the time has been dedicated to making sure the watch ships on time and as expected.

But that said, an update has arrived today and it brings talk of the Play Store and OStore. The Omate team has lead off with an apology.

“We apologize for any confusion that our initial statements may have caused regarding the Official Google Play Store.”

From what we can see, there wasn’t any real room for the confusion. Aside from the comment sitting above about how the Omate was going to arrive as the “world’s 1st smartwatch 2.0 with Google Play App Store,” they also quoted Android Community on the Kickstarter page when we covered that earlier news. Under the ‘Omate TrueSmart in International Press Worldwide’ section of the Kickstarter page, they listed the following;

“… Omate TrueSmart will ship with Google Play Store access…”

With that, it looks like some things have changed and some users will end up disappointed. Anyway, issue with the ‘confusion’ aside, the folks at Omate did go on to offer some sort of explanation in regards to the Play Store being on the watch. Or more accurately, in regards to the Play Store not being on the watch. In this most recent update the team mentioned that “even though Android does not currently allow for official Play Store support for Smartwatch 2.0 devices, Omate is still working closely with Google over Google Play and Google Services issues.”

They then go on to mention how they “feel that the combined efforts of Google and Omate will allow for Google Play Store and Google Services to be on the TrueSmart and we are fully committed to get the TrueSmart certified and the needed updates released.” But again, until that happens — users will be getting the OStore and not the Play Store. In fact, there was clear confirmation about how the Developer Edition watches shipping in October will not have the Play Store.

“In videos and pictures from various developer events we’ve been attending, we have shown Google Play and Google Services are working properly on the TrueSmart engineering samples. However we have to respect Google’s certification process in order to get official access to their services so we must confirm the TrueSmart Developer Edition will not ship with Google Play preloaded on it.”