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Google I/O is barreling at us as it’s set to kick off late next month, and Google is drumming up some excitement for the big event. One of the many things we expect to see at the show is a deeper look at Android Wear, which is an Android-based wearables platform that Google introduced for smart watches a couple of months ago.
They’ve been urging developers to make applications with notifications implemented in a way that would work seamlessly and beautiful on Android Wear smartwatches. While most notifications are already supported with basic functionality, they’ve released lots of new APIs that will allow app developers to make those notifications even more rich (such as music controls for your music app, or the ability to page through multiple notification items instead of only being able to see the absolute latest alert).
Google is giving us another look at some Android Wear notifications today. A couple of screenshots show how the Nest home thermostat and smoke detector can alert you to conditions at home, how your calendar can remind you of an appointment, and how Clash of Clans can tell you that your trips are ready for battle. These seem to work just like traditional Android notifications — picture, app name, pertinent info.
Then we zoom over to an example of an app that can do more advanced things, such as Pocket Casts with a pause / playback button, and the ability to skip tracks. These obviously won’t represent the most exciting use cases of Android Wear notifications, but we imagine we’ll be seeing a lot more by the time June 25th rolls around. Have a look at the gallery above.
[via Google+]
Paltform: Platform
Can you customize Wear the way you can do so on Android?
The UI, don’t think so. Which is a good thing. It will lead to a more Googly and unified experience. Now OEMs will be able to have their own applications and addons I believe.
My biggest issues with smart watches are most apps don’t allow you to control actual deep functions of navigation or functions of apps / the phone itself. Notifications are nice, but doesn’t really take me that long to pull out my smartphone out of my pocket. I think of it complimented your phone in a way where it became like a smart remote it would be worth it. For example. Mute or unmute a phone call during conversation, look up a contact while your in a phone call etc. Add a call, etc. Or browse back and forward between open apps, browse between Web pages. Use it to scroll up and down Web page, bla, bla, bla
You get the picture.
That would be with getting and worth wasting battery from bluetooth over
I personally think the wear looks great but I’m more about something that can track some fitness info and give me phone notifications. Those are the two things I’m looking for. The wear functionality wise seems to try to do to much to do well but also not enough at the same time.
I don’t see why you wouldn’t be able to add those Wear functions into your applications.
Why would you want to scroll a webpage with your watch?
While your reading phandroid, you reach to your watch to scroll?
Also, unless you use speakerphone from across the room often, I don’t see how it would be useful to mute/lookup contact from watch… It’d be hard to hold up your phone and use your watch..
Controlling an android enabled TV from the watch might make scrolling with the watch useful.
sorry, should of made it more clear, i was trying to give examples if your phone was in your pocket or if you were watching it on a stand/dock etc so you can control things without touching your phone, or pulling your phone out of your pocket.
I feel like android wear will have more specific uses than phones and won’t e for everyone. It’ll be easier to reply to messages, answer calls, pause or scroll through music, change volumes, see emails, get navigation while running or riding a bike, track fitness while being able to actually glance at fitness progress, etc. It shaves a few seconds and a motion off of each of those things, but for some people that will be enough. I’d like one for jogging, replying to a message quickly while out and about, and controlling music. I don’t think I’d pay more than $150 for it, but it would be nice.
Phones getting larger and larger will provably make it even more appealing since getting a 6″ Galaxy S7 Active, Moto X4 Max, HTC One XG63 Plus, LG G5 XLTE, or whatever else will be out in a couple years will be even more cumbersome for some people than pulling out the current flagship phones. The big phone can sit in a pocket, bag, or purse waiting for web browsing, photos, streaming movies, etc and act as a storage device for media.
Trips == Troops ;)
I just need a compass on there for work. I don’t want to buy a ‘dumb watch’ just for a compass feature, so I need an all in one solution.