Google has noted at I/O 2014 that we glance at our smartphones 125 times per day, but thinks that Android Wear devices can take on much of that burden. Using LG's G Watch, it showed how and Android Wear screen will show the most important thing to you at a given time, first and foremost (like whether your flight is on time, for instance). Since Android Wear devices have touchscreens, you can swipe up on the watch face, Google Now-style, and see more cards with info like the weather, notifications, etc. Swiping sideways will then bring up info on a given card. Disposing of a card on the watch makes it disappear on your handset too.
You've also got voice commands, activated by -- you guessed -- "Okay, Google." You can use it to set a reminder -- which seemed to work very smoothly during the demo -- or take voice notes which are automatically saved to Google Keep (that part of the demo didn't go so well). You can pose questions to the watch, and it'll bring the answer in card form on both your wearable and phone screen. Swiping down from the top of the watch face mutes or unmutes sound on your watch, or lets you peek at settings like the remaining battery life.
As we recently saw with the Pebble, you've also got on-screen (or voice-activated) music controls and the album art even shows up as a background screen. It'll function as a sportsband as well, measuring the steps you've taken and your heart rate on supported devices.
Google said that all that comes with Wear out-of-the-box, but Developers can also take a crack at it. For instance, any phone notification from say, Twitter or Facebook, can also be available on your wrist, along with voice replies and notification pages as we saw in an earlier preview. Another example flaunted by Mountain View was with Pinterest, which will notify you when you're near a pal's location, letting you swipe to see a map and step-by-step directions. All that's powered by Gmaps, which is baked into Android Wear, of course.
Developing...
Filed under: Wearables, Google
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