Android Wear

Published: March 19, 2014 9:31 AM /

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android_wear

Yesterday Google released details on their next big wearable, which is a smart watch. Android wear is a customized Android OS with some amazing features. Google's announcement brought excitement to many techies eyes and hear is why.

Android Wear is starting with smartwatches, but is also meant to eventually extend to other wearables, according to Google. It’s designed to be an extension of Google Now in many ways, with timely updates and suggestions provided to you as you need them most. It’ll also answer spoken questions directly, thanks to the above-mentioned always-on listening for requests prompted by the “Ok Google” command. Things you can ask for include requests about flight times, making reservations, sending texts and more.

Google is making a preview SDK available now for Android developers, which is designed to make it easy to build extensions to existing smartphone Android apps that work with Android Wear, rather than for building standalone apps. Other early hardware partners include Asus, HTC, Motorola, Samsung, Fossil and more.

The preview SDK includes an emulator to show you devs how their notifications will look on an Android Wear device, with either square or round screens, and includes APIs that allow you to customize notifications to receive voice replies, showcase additional page content and stack with other, like notifications (meaning you can perhaps browse Wear notifications by type, i.e. all text-based messages stacked).

android_wear_screenshot

This is just the beginning for Android wearables. One of the many great things about this new wearable from Google is the ability to have endless designs and innovations that we haven't seen in a long time. With Google coming out with there smart-watch that leaves one giant left to reveal. What do you think of Android wear? Will you get one of the many different designs or are you holding out for an iWatch?

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