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Google And Samsung Execs Had A Tense Conversation About Smartwatches

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Larry Page Google
AP

Google and Samsung execs got into a tense conversation about smartwatches at last week's mega-conference in Sun Valley, according to The Information's Jessica Lessin

Google CEO Larry Page vented to Samsung Vice Chairman Jay Lee that that he was frustrated by how much Samsung was investing in smartwatches running its Tizen operating system instead of Google's Android Wear software, according to Lessin's sources. 

Right now, Samsung has three smartwatches that run its own software and the Samsung Gear Live, which uses Android Wear. 

Samsung's first smartwatch, the Galaxy Gear, did run a modified version of Android. This was last October, before Google was finished with the Android Wear software. However, Samsung decided to switch to Tizen because of battery life and performance issues, the company told Business Insider in March

This isn't the first time Google and Samsung have butted heads recently.

In an on-going tension between the two companies, Google's Android head, Sundar Pichai, told Samsung the company was "willing to walk" in a heated meeting in January about how Google didn't want Samsung creating so many custom apps that did the same thing as Google's native apps.

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Jillian was most recently an enterprise technology editor based in San Francisco.  She started at Insider as an intern on the technology desk in 2013 and rose to a senior reporter position, covering Alphabet, Facebook, and ecommerce. After three years at the site, she left to spend time freelance writing abroad, before taking reporting positions at CNBC and then at Forbes, where she covered Alphabet, Silicon Valley culture, and artificial intelligence. She returned to Insider in March 2020 and worked on the enterprise technology desk until August 2021.  Jillian graduated from Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications with a degree in magazine journalism and information management and technology.