During yesterday’s Google I/O keynote, there was a second that stood out to me which will have been misplaced on a number of of us. While giving examples of recent apps featured on Wear OS 3, Google took the time to name out KakaoDiscuss. I gained’t lie. I stood up, pointed my finger at my laptop monitor, and screeched some model of “AHA! I was right!”

If you already know what KakaoDiscuss is, you seemingly are Korean, Korean-American, have a ton of Korean associates, love Okay-pop and Okay-dramas, or have lived / reside in Korea. You can see the place I’m going right here. KakaoDiscuss is the primary messaging app in Korea. The easiest method I can describe it’s that KakaoDiscuss is Korea’s model of WeChat or WhatsApp. According to Statista, greater than 47 million South Koreans had been energetic month-to-month customers on the app in This fall 2021. The present inhabitants of South Korea is roughly 51 million.

In my household, solely the iPhone customers truly textual content one another. The remainder of the time, it’s KakaoDiscuss. That’s the place the household group chat is. It’s how I name and textual content my aunt. If I name my aunt the “normal” manner, she is way much less more likely to choose up than if I name her over KakaoDiscuss. When my mother and father had been alive, it was the principle app we used to speak, ship photos, and share movies. I typically hear the KakaoDiscuss ringtone in my desires.

Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge

While Tizen, Samsung’s proprietary wearable OS, had its strengths, it didn’t have a wide selection of third-party apps. What third-party apps it did have had been occasionally up to date. Meanwhile, Apple and fewer technologically spectacular Wear OS watches had a way more sturdy app ecosystem. Fixing this weak spot was the principle cause Samsung made the swap to Wear OS.

I doubt Samsung would ever admit it, however my principle is that Kakao’s refusal to make a Tizen app drove dwelling the purpose that Samsung must abandon the platform if it needed to develop its smartwatch enterprise. Samsung is probably the most highly effective firm within the nation. It accounts for roughly 20 p.c of South Korea’s GDP — and it couldn’t get KakaoDiscuss, the nation’s hottest messaging and social media app, to develop a devoted Tizen app. Reportedly, the explanation KakaoDiscuss gave boiled right down to Tizen’s market reach not being worth the effort. To rub salt within the wound, KakaoDiscuss had already created Android, iOS, and watchOS variations of its app. Samsung was, in essence, getting dissed on its dwelling turf.

KakaoDiscuss truly developed its Wear OS app back in October, but it surely’s one other factor for it to be singled out at I/O. This truly isn’t the primary time KakaoDiscuss has been featured in Wear OS promotional supplies. The app was additionally thrown up on the screen at Google I/O last year when Google introduced it was collaborating with Samsung on Wear OS 3. I’ve to think about this was Google serving to Samsung out in interesting to the Korean market, the place 72 percent of the population uses Android and 67 percent uses Samsung phones. (Google did additionally use japchae in the course of the keynote to demo “multisearch near me,” and you can’t underestimate Korean nationwide delight at stuff like that.)

This is Samsung signaling to the Asian market that it’s bought the apps they need now. Apps which were on the Apple Watch for a protracted, very long time. For occasion, LINE, one other Korean-made chat app that’s vastly in style in Japan, was additionally included as one of many featured Wear OS 3 apps. And whereas Google could not resolve to deliver the Pixel Watch to the Asian market, these additions do assist Samsung smartwatches seem extra interesting in arguably its most vital market — Asia.

So this appears like a type of occasions the place Google trotting out KakaoDiscuss as a promoting level wasn’t meant for American or European markets in any respect. And judging by how I reacted, I’d say it was fairly efficient.