Google Calendar Comes to the Apple Watch
Toggle Dark Mode
Google has been re-embracing the Apple Watch over the past few years. In 2020, Google Maps famously made a comeback to the wearable, followed by regular updates to add new functionality. Now, Google is bringing its calendar to your wrist.
While it’s not a particularly sophisticated implementation, it will allow users who rely on Google’s Calendar app to keep track of their schedule without needing to sync it with Apple Calendar or another third-party watchOS-compatible calendar app.
The watchOS app is included as part of the version 25.24.1 update to Google Calendar for iPhone and is the only change listed in the release notes. The app displays the next seven days’ worth of events in a simple list view; unlike Apple Calendar, there are no traditional calendar views available. You can’t scroll back to past events — even the current day’s events vanish once their end times have passed. However, they are color-coded according to calendar and any individual event colors you’ve assigned, which is a nice bonus, as Apple Calendar doesn’t pull in those event colors.
Tapping on an event shows additional details, including the name, location, and description. However, you can’t edit or create events from the Apple Watch, and the locations don’t actively link to Google Maps or Apple Maps for directions. While Google Tasks are also displayed in the watchOS app, they can’t be completed from there. In several places in the app, users are prompted to “Open Calendar on your phone to view more.”
In all fairness, Google isn’t singling out Apple Watch users here; the Wear OS version of Google Calendar offers similarly basic features.
On the upside, Google Calendar now includes two new complications, allowing you to view your upcoming events directly on your watch face. A “What’s Next” complication can be placed in a circular, corner, or rectangular slot to show the next upcoming appointment or task. A “Today’s Date” complication acts as a button, displaying the current date and allowing the user to open Google Calendar directly. There’s also a widget for the Smart Stack.
As it stands, Google Calendar is only the fourth app to become available on Apple’s wearable, so it still falls short of what Google could be doing. While Gmail might be a bit much for the Apple Watch, Google Tasks would be pretty helpful for those who live in the company’s ecosystem — although at least Google Calendar now fills that void.
While Google Maps was technically the first watchOS app the company offered, it removed the capability in early 2017. After that, Google Keep became the first new Google app on the Apple Watch in 2019, enabling users to view their notes on their wrist, although it’s received few updates since then. Ironically, although Google beat Apple to a notes app by about six years, it also announced the end of life for Keep in May, less than a month ahead of Apple’s announcement that its own Notes app will be coming to the wearable in watchOS 26.
