Android Wear Developer Preview
Article Summary
Austin Robison from the Android Wear team just opened the door to wrist-based computing. Google's betting that notifications on your wrist will change how users interact with their phones.
Google launched the Android Wear Developer Preview in March 2014, extending the Android platform to smartwatches. The preview includes an emulator for testing on both square and round displays, plus new APIs for customizing notifications with voice replies, additional pages, and stacking capabilities.
Key Takeaways
- Existing Android app notifications automatically appear on Wear devices
- New APIs enable voice replies, multi-page notifications, and smart stacking
- Emulator supports testing on both square and round watch faces
- Voice commands let users get info and complete tasks hands-free
Android Wear brings a unified developer platform to smartwatches, letting developers enhance existing notifications without building separate apps from scratch.
About This Article
Google faced a challenge with wearable devices that came in different shapes. Some had square displays, others were round. They needed to build a developer platform that would work consistently across all these devices and give users a unified experience.
The Android Wear team extended Android to work on wearables and built an emulator tool. This let developers test how notifications would look on both square and round devices during the Developer Preview phase.
Developers could use their existing app notifications on wearables without writing separate code. This meant wearable experiences reached the market faster across the new device category.