Google unveils Android Wear: a version of Android for smartwatches

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The reaction has been fascinating. Many of the Apple fan sites are flat out ignoring the news. A few weeks ago Gruber was snarking at Motorola

Then when the Android Wearables video dropped yesterday he was skeptically tweeting

After the moto 360 news and videos came out there was no update lol

Two most curious reactions so far (besides Jtwo's sticking his head in the sand :P)



The answer is "Google is getting better at design faster than Apple is getting better at web services."

What innovations is Apple's eventual iWatch going to offer? Gesture UI? Payment system? The iWatch will have to be especially 'sexy' (curved screen — as on the Samsung Galaxy Fit) and/or the fitness function would have to be ground breaking (diabetes management?) because Apple is already far behind on the stuff Google showed off yesterday. iOS notifications don't support response actions, there's no iOS intents system (to enable third party Voice actions), there's no iOS equivalent to Google Now, Siri isn't as good as Google's voice dictation, no iOS equivalent to Google's Home automation...

Apple still has its captive iPhone/iPad userbase that will make any iWatch a success but, unlike at the iPhone launch and the iPad launch, I don't think Apple will be dominating this new market

Pretty much my thoughts. They've waited a bit too long. And Google Now is Android's trump card; it's perfect for smartwatches.
 
anyone here a watch-oholic but hates this?

Actually you seem more likely. Like how "book readers" hate eBooks because they don't have that book smell. If you appreciate watches in the traditional sense I could easily see this not being appealing, perhaps you might even feel this is a pollution of what watches are.
 
So theres a rumor going around these are gonna be solar powered? Thats a gamechanger if true.
 
I only see wearables becoming more popular when Apple says so.... The being said, I still don't think they will light the world on fire.

They won't. Smartwatches are the new Google Glass: Neat toys that really only have legitimate use cases for a small, specific portion of the population.
 

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So yea, not a whole new OS

Specifically Sagar said that Android Wear is for notifications, not full-fledged apps. This revelation is likely to surprise quite a few, as we’d seen Google Now prominently running on the smartwatches shown off at the Android Wear unveiling, and the assumption was the this was just the tip of what we were going to see on the Android Wear platform. Unlike Google Glass it seems like Android Wear won’t be getting its own app store, or at least that’s something pretty simple that can be taken away from this sort of thing, rather apps will be built with Android Wear notification functionality and interaction, making the wearable an extension of the phone or tablet that the app actually resides on. This ensures that information is “glanceable” as Sagar and Google call it, and provides the most simple interactive experience possible. Sagar continues to stress simplicity in design, not just visually but functionally as well. What this means in actual app output we’ll not know for a little while now when the actual devices get some hands-on time and more development behind them, but it seems that the scope is intended to be limited to helping interact with your phone or tablet in new and different ways rather than replacing them as some have suggested would happen.



http://www.androidheadlines.com/201...-full-fledged-apps-says-android-engineer.html
 
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