CALIFORNIA: Google has released a major update for Android Wear smartwatches. The first feature addition is always-on apps. While displays on the Android Wear watches are switched on when you bring up your wrist, they can be asked to remain always-on. The trouble is the “always-on” only works on the home screen and not on apps, so Google has decided to take care of this issue without affecting battery life. When you set an app as always on it will show full colour when you are actively looking at it, but when you put your wrist down the apps change to black and white trying to save battery.
With the Sony Smartwatch 3, Google had already included features like GPS and offline music support so that you could leave your phone at home when you went for jogging. The new Android Wear update eliminates the need of your phone fully by including Wi-Fi support. This means no matter how far you are from your phone, you will still be able to receive notifications, send messages and interact with apps. Google has also tried to bring some Apple Watch features like emojis but with a certain change. In Apple Watches, when you draw an emoji, the other user gets the same hand-written one, but on Android Wear the scribbled emoji gets converted into the graphical emoji thanks to Google’s handwriting recognition capabilities. Google has also aped Apple by allowing quick access to contacts and apps with a single tap. Finally since Android Wear watches lack Apple’s patented digital crown, Google had to improvise when it came to notification and news scrolling. If you want to read your notifications one by one, you can flick your wrist and scroll through notifications from different apps.
Google informs that all Android Wear watches from various companies will be getting the update within the coming weeks, starting from LG’s Watch Urbane.
