Android Wear 2.0 Gets A Keyboard, Standalone Apps, Activity Recognition, New UI (techcrunch.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Google unveiled the biggest update to Android Wear yet at Google I/O -- Android Wear version 2.0. Google VP of Engineering for Android Wear David Singleton said the new version represents a "holistic pass across the design of the whole system" and focuses on providing users more glanceable information, improved messaging tools (including support for keyboards, handwriting recognition and smart replies), as well as new fitness and wellness features. The design features improved Material Design aesthetics with an emphasis on color. By default, the navigation drawer is always at the top of the screen and notifications themselves will always show up at the bottom. Android Wear 2.0 features standalone apps that communicate directly over the Internet via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or cellular. Apps are no longer exclusively relying on a tethered phone or cloud syncing. There's a Complications API, which allows developers to pass raw data to watch faces. Wear 2.0 adds two new input methods: a swipe-style keyboard for typing and a handwriting recognition mode to sketch letters on your watch's screen to spell out messages. There have also been various Google Fit-related improvements to make Android Wear watches better fitness trackers. Android Wear 2.0 is available today as a developer preview, with the finished product being released this fall.

Comments

First!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

First!!!! My mom will be so proud!

Everyone is suffering from the SEGA syndrome

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop upgrading and updating and changing everything every few months or even years. You need to let people, both users and programmers, catch up to what your hardware and software can do.

If all you have is a moving target, like SEGA did by launching one console, one upgrade and two more consoles within only a few years, people will move to something more stable. Programmers don't want to waste time making something that will only be used for a few months or a year or two, so they move to something more stable. And without programmers, your users will move to whatever other system or platforms those programmers have moved to.

Re:Everyone is suffering from the SEGA syndrome

[Anonymous Coward]

Regarding SEGA, the one thing that's sad is that the last console they released at the end of that crazy upgrade train was the Dreamcast, which was a much better system that what Sony had at the time, IMHO.

Re:Everyone is suffering from the SEGA syndrome

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

If there's one thing I learned about Google, is that it's not even worth the trouble using anything but their major products (search, mail, maps). Anything else and you risk losing it soon.

Re:Everyone is suffering from the SEGA syndrome

[Lumpy]

Problem is todays programmers cant actually write good software anymore. It's change the UI and add features not fix all the bugs and tighten up the code so that it runs 25% faster.

They dont even teach decent code optimization anymore in colleges.

Re:Everyone is suffering from the SEGA syndrome

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

Of course they don't! I bet the majority of teachers never heard of it either.

And when is your boss going to let you optimize your code? Who's that going to benefit? How do you bill that to your client? He'll scream at you for doing a poor job in the first place and ask you to fix his code on your own time.

Re:Everyone is suffering from the SEGA syndrome

[Lumpy]

His fault for telling us we have to use C#.

Re:Everyone is suffering from the SEGA syndrome

[Anonymous Coward]

His fault for telling us we have to use C# when we should be fired because can't be bothered to learn how to optimize code in a language we don't fucking understand.

FTFY

Re:Everyone is suffering from the SEGA syndrome

[Anonymous Coward]

That attitude would have some validity for a mature technology, but for something in its infancy like smartwatches, it makes no sense whatsoever. Currently, both hardware and software need a lot of work to get to the point of mass-market usefulness, so rapid development is pretty much essential.

Re:Everyone is suffering from the SEGA syndrome

[nightfire-unique]

Yep. Just one long slog trying to capture the bottom of the barrel into your userbase by making UIs "simpler." It's sad.

Let 'em go. Just let those last 5% derpy fashionistas suck the life out of your competitor.

Re:Everyone is suffering from the SEGA syndrome

[antdude]

My college courses never taught code optimizations in the mid (19)90s. :/

Battery life not mentioned in the article

[tom229]

Virtually all of this will just make battery life worse, which is the biggest problem with wearables today. They keep trying to jam wearables down our throat without the necessary battery technology to make them viable. Nobody wants to charge their watch every day for the confidence of checking a text message on it.

Re:Battery life not mentioned in the article

[Shatrat]

The Withings Activite uses a lithium button cell that lasts for months and costs less than a dollar a piece. It's not a full blown smart watch, more of a health monitor with some analog feedback on the dial. It does seem like the least ugly and most practical wearable available right now. I was considering buying one, but I like the dumbwatch I already have. I agree with you on battery tech. I wouldn't be able to stand having to charge my phone and my watch every day.

Re:Battery life not mentioned in the article

[quetwo]

I've got the Moto 360, and it lasts about 36 hours on heavy use, and about 48 hours with my normal use. This is acceptable in my case -- I drop it on the charging cradle when I go to bed, and it's ready when I'm up. It only takes about 45 minutes for a full charge, so even charging it when I'm getting ready in the morning is not a problem.

There are other brands that I know are better and many more that have worse battery life. It's a consideration, like like battery life on a phone. But in my case, I feel pretty good considering I've had the watch for just over a year and a half.

Re:Battery life not mentioned in the article

[nevermore94]

I love my now fairly old Moto 360. I get about a day and a half of battery life out of it and it usually outlasts my phone and yet fully charges in less than an hour. I charge my phone everyday and just drop my watch on its charger at night. It is no big deal. I love being able to create and changes faces when I want as well as being able to see notifications, appointments, and calls without taking out my phone. Although I own several other nice dumb watches, I don't think I could ever go back.

Re:Battery life not mentioned in the article

[nightfire-unique]

I disagree 100%.

I am only interested in a powerful computing device, not making huge compromises for battery life. I do not purchase products with insufficient battery capacity for its intended use, and hold a fair amount of disdain for those who do (especially when they make me suffer with shit like non-disableable doze and bizarre GPS behavior).

My Huawei watch gets about 36 hours of battery life, which is too much. I'd prefer 20-24 hours, with more performance (and an easy way to suspend it). I have precisely zero issue with charging my devices nightly.

Re:Battery life not mentioned in the article

[tom229]

Most people aren't willing to trade a time piece that lasts several months for one that lasts a mere day simply because it can bluetooth to their phone. You are the exception sir.

Do. Not. Want.

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it have this shit?

https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/05/18/2146216/google-turns-firebase-into-its-unified-platform-for-mobile-developers

Because if it does, I don't want it. Ever.

Babelfish?

[Anonymous Coward]

After reading the summary my first reaction was to scramble in panic under the desk to see whether my babelfish had fallen out.

I mean: "There's a Complications API, which allows developers to pass raw data to watch faces". WTF?

Re:Babelfish?

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

There's a Complications API, which allows developers to pass raw data to watch faces.

Re:Babelfish?

[bondsbw]

A "complication" is a traditional domain-specific term related to watches, and just means a feature above and beyond standard time-telling (such as moon phases or a calculator).

If you don't know what a complication is related to watches, I could see how "Complications API" is a strange term and might be misinterpreted as a typo of "complicated API".

Otherwise, that sentence seems self-explanatory.

Re:Babelfish?

[Moochman]

Interesting. I thought Apple invented the term "complication" as a play on words of "application". You learn something new every day.

2.0

[110010001000]

Version 2.0 exists because version 1.0 was an abject failure in the market. Also applies to Microsoft Surface which is up to version 4 with still no buyers in sight.

Re:2.0

[Lumpy]

Surface at it's pricepoint? yep. I bought one used from a student that was desperate for money. got a nice 128gig surface pro with all accessories for $150. at that price it's a fantastic device.

At the $1600 price point.... it's a failure.

Re:2.0

[tom229]

I've always wanted to buy one, but they cost more than a MacBook (which I also don't buy) and they run their horrible new versions of Windows with no downgrade options. It's been humorous to watch Microsoft stop feasting on the elephant carcass they already caught, to chase Apple around, nipping at their heels but never quite catching them. I wonder how much money they've burnt in the last 5+ years on this nonsense.

Re:2.0

[Anonymous Coward]

So much this. Microsofts device is actually really nice, but that price point is KILLING it so hard.

They need to figure out a better way of pricing it, maybe via a subscription like system phones typically use.
A one-off payment like that is just way out of the price point for most people that would buy it, only ones left are the niche areas that are interested in graphics work with it. (be it architecture, art or others)
Depending on a niche for expensive things is never a good idea if you want anything to go anywhere. Even if you are making a profit on it.

It is better than all these other crappy tablets (including my Note 10 I am using now) simply because it actually has the ability to work with peripherals, whereas all these other crappy tablets are trying to be as free of features as possible it seems.
Hell, the only reason I went with the Note 10 was Samdungs superior window management system, which Android stock still barely has.
The preview for multi-tasking looks inferior even to all those multi-task apps.
If Google actually makes it more like a tiling window manager with actual decent task manager, I'd maybe consider it.
But still, the lack of peripherals that aren't guff wireless shit, that annoys immensely.

The tablet industry at large missed out on creating a standard interface for peripherals, similar to the ones you used to see on laptops that would have parallel, serial, firewire and USB back in the early days.
If they actually created such a standard, tablets would be so much better. USB ports, HDMI for extra screen, maybe a port for external GPUs as well, so even gamers could get behind it. (most games are mainly dependant on a great GPU, CPUs usage is still pretty low besides physics-intense games)
But nope. Too busy being idiots and adding stupid shit, like screens on edges and hover-apps and hover-boards or whatever other crap hipsters get behind.

It's the battery stupid

[zerofoo]

My wife has an Apple Watch, I have a Moto 360 and a Samsung Gear Fit. The Apple watch and the Moto 360 are hobbled by software problems but the unforgivable sin is poor battery life. Both of these devices can barely make it through a work day - forget about going out at night with either unless you charge them after work.

My Samsung Gear Fit - while not technically a smartwatch is a smart-enough watch that gives me alerts, tells me the time, tracks my activity and has days long battery life.

I want my next watch to be lighter, cheaper, and have fantastic battery life.

Re:It's the battery stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Buy a pebble then. Duh.

fall ?

[stephows]

with the finished product being released this fall.

It is already fall (autumn) in the southern hemisphere.

Pebble?

[zerofoo]

I should have been more clear in my post.

I want a smart-enough watch with good battery life that doesn't look awful. Pebble's watches look clunky and have displays that look pixelated enough to belong in the 80's.