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Android Wear 2.0 Is An Evolutionary Update To Google's Smartwatch OS (techcrunch.com)
Google is officially launching Android Wear 2.0 today -- the biggest update to the company's wearable operating system since its launch in 2014. While Android Wear 2.0 will be launching with two new flagship watches from LG -- the LG Watch Sport and LG Watch Style, a number of existing Wear watches will also get this update in the coming weeks and months. TechCrunch reports: The first thing you'll notice when you get a 2.0 watch is the overall update to its design -- both in terms of the overall look but also the user experience. The look of Wear 2.0 now skews closer to Google's Material Design guidelines. While the overall look will still feel familiar to Wear 1.0 users, the update put a stronger emphasis on cards, for example. This means every notification now gets a full screen to show its preview and you can use the watch's dial to scroll through them (assuming your watch has a dial, of course -- otherwise you can obviously still use the touch screen to scroll). The other marquee feature of Wear 2.0 is support for standalone apps that don't need a companion app to run on your phone. That means developers can write apps that are purely geared toward the watch and they can then publish it on the Google Play store, which is now also available directly on the watch. That sounds more useful than it is -- unless you plan on getting an LTE-enabled watch and leave your phone at home. That's an option now that you could run Hangout or Google Music directly on the watch, but, except for runners, that's likely not a typical use case. At the end of the day, the most important use case for a smartwatch remains dealing with notifications. Everything else often feels like an unnecessary complication. [In summary, Frederic Lardinois writes via TechCrunch:] The Android smartwatch market could use a revolution to kickstart what now occasionally feels like a moribund ecosystem. Wear 2.0 doesn't feel revolutionary. It is, however, a perfectly adequate update that addresses many of the issues with Android Wear. It also puts it on parity with its competitors, like Apple's watchOS or Samsung's Tizen. It does also introduce some new use cases for LTE-enabled watches, but I can't help but feel that this will remain a niche category. Much, however, will depend on Google's hardware partners who will now have to bring Wear 2.0 to life.
Queue the "But my Casio's battery lasts for years!" and the "Only 13 people in the history of the world have purchases a smart watch" comments ...
Well, in general, maybe, but I got mine for golf and many golfers I know use them. Distance and hole layout just with a look, tracking shots is very easy, etc. There are a number of very specific use cases that they're one of the best tools on the market for
I am curious about the main pros and cons of a Wear 2 watch vs the current Apple Watch, next to the fact that they are tied to their own ecosystem of course. I have the first generation Apple Watch since a good year, and my wife has the new one. We like them. I am actually a big fan of traditional mechanical watches and yet I find that I wear the AW at least two days per week (I have 10 other mechanical watches in my rotation, hence relatively it is worn a lot). What I like most: the discreet tapping notifications and reminders, the dial with integrated activity plots, the ease of Apple pay, occasionally it is quicker to answer a call on the watch than on the phone. Also the dial designs while less plentiful than on android watches are restrained and in good taste (nothing is as offputting as a screen dial that is bright like a torch). I like to use Siri to control a few homekit devices (Siri switch on standing lamp) through it. The daily charging is less an issue than I expected. The build quality and feel is quite premium, my stainless one feels more posh than most watches in the mall at similar price levels.
At first glance, Android Wear 2 seems comparable in functionality with the difference of having round dials in the case of LG. I must say that round dials look better to me for time display. Not so sure yet for general information display, rectangular seems better for that.
Any comments on the relative merits of Android Wear 2? What does it do that the Apple Watch doesn't and vice versa?
Regardless, I think that the true breakthrough of this category of devices will come when eventually more health related sensors will be added. It is well known that Apple hired people with PHDs on non-invasive sensors for blood glucose, blood oxygen etc; I can imagine Google having done the same.