Android Wear next major update to bring interactive watch faces and watch-to-watch communication

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

/ by Abhinaya
As per the industry sources, Google is planning something big for the Android Wear platform. Recently, the version 5.1.1 of the wearable OS was rolled out by Google with new gesture features and advanced functionality. Now, Google seems to be prepping to add several improved features to the upcoming iteration of the Android Wear platform. According to Phandroid, Google will be adding couple of new and cool features to Android Wear. 

Moto 360
Moto 360 - Download
One of the features is claimed to be a new single tap gesture that is aimed for the interactive functionality on the watch faces. The Android Wear users were able to open the launcher with a tap on the screen and after the 5.1.1 update, a swipe from left to right activates the launcher on Wear. Though this feature is convenient, the developers have been experimenting with the other uses of the single tap that Google is picking on.

As of now, there are a few Android Wear apps in the Play Store that overwrite the default behavior and implement a few quick toggles or shortcuts that will be activated on pressing once. The idea is to prompt Google to integrate the behavior straight into the operating system so that the developers need not rely on the undocumented tricks or methods to obtain the effect that they want.

Now, a series of leaked images show what the new single tap gesture can be used for. They include cycling via variants of a watch face with some design changes. This new control scheme opens the possibility to interact with the shortcuts on the watch face adding more details or simply launching the application.

Interactive Watchfaces concept
Interactive Watchfaces concept (1) - Download
Interactive Watchfaces concept
Interactive Watchfaces concept (2) - Download
Interactive Watchfaces concept
Interactive Watchfaces concept (3)- Download
Interactive Watchfaces concept
Interactive Watchfaces concept (4) - Download
Another feature to come to Android Wear is watch to watch or say cross device communication. The users of Apple Watch already have the ability to send the doodles between one another and Google is still lagging in this front. This feature is likely to be called Together and it should let the Wear users to send messages, photos, emojis, doodles and stickers between each other.

Also, the next Android Wear update will finally enable Wi-Fi support on the LG G Watch R, which was left out of the Android 5.1.1 update. 

We hope that we will get to know more information related to the future Android Wear update soon. However, the roll out of the software with advanced features has been delayed to August from July 28th.
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edited with by Aman