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

Posted by BeauHD on from the better-than-ever dept.

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.

7 of 31 comments (clear)

  1. Everyone is suffering from the SEGA syndrome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Everyone is suffering from the SEGA syndrome by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 3

      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.

    2. Re:Everyone is suffering from the SEGA syndrome by Lumpy · · Score: 3

      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.

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      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    3. Re:Everyone is suffering from the SEGA syndrome by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 2

      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.

  2. Battery life not mentioned in the article by tom229 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

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    If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
    1. Re:Battery life not mentioned in the article by Shatrat · · Score: 2

      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.

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  3. Re:Babelfish? by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 2

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