Tag Archives: AndroidWear

Android Wear Beta

Posted by Hoi Lam, Lead Developer Advocate, Android Wear
LG Watch Sport

Today, we are launching the beta of the next Android Wear update. As we mentioned at Google I/O, this will mainly be a technical upgrade to API 26 with enhancements to background limits and notification channels. LG Watch Sport users can go to this webpage to sign up and the factory image will automatically be downloaded to the watch you enroll. As this is a beta, please be sure to review the known issues before enrolling. If you don't have a watch to test on, you can use the Android emulator. For developers working with Android Wear for China, an updated emulator image is also available.

Notification Channels

In this update, users can choose the types of notifications they receive via an app through notification channels. This gives users finer-grained control than muting all notifications from the app. For notifications generated locally by Android Wear apps, users will be able to customise the notifications channel they want to see, right on their watch. Please refer to the Wear notification sample for more details. For notifications bridged from the phone, the phone notifications channel settings will dictate what is shown on the watch. 

if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.O) {
    mNotificationManager.createNotificationChannel(
        NotificationChannel("1001", "New Follower",
            NotificationManager.IMPORTANCE_DEFAULT))

    mNotificationManager.createNotificationChannel(
        NotificationChannel("1002", "Likes",
            NotificationManager.IMPORTANCE_LOW))
}

Background Limits

There are increased restrictions on background services. Developers should assume services can no longer run in the background without a visible notification. In addition, the background location update frequency will be reduced. Battery-saving best practices such as using JobScheduler should be adopted to ensure your app is battery-efficient and able to perform background tasks when possible.

Please give us your feedback

We expect this to be the only beta release before the final production release. Thank you for your feedback so far. Please submit any bugs you find via the Android Wear issue tracker. The earlier you submit them, the higher the likelihood that we can include the fixes in the final release.

Get a glimpse of Wear 2.0’s upcoming standalone apps

Kacey Fahey, Marketing Programs Manager, Google Play

The upcoming Android Wear 2.0 experience will introduce standalone apps, expanding your potential reach to both Android and iOS audiences with Wear devices. Users will be able to search, install, and use apps without ever leaving their device. See how other developers are enhancing their user experience with standalone apps for messaging, travel & local, and health & fitness.

Glide

Having a watch app further simplifies video messaging with Glide. Using the Wear Complications API, Glide is now able to live broadcast directly from the watch face. By tapping contact shortcuts from the watch face, you can now launch directly into a conversation. This experience brings speed and intimacy to the world of messaging, making wrist-based communication more accessible and effortless.
Foursquare

Travelers around the world use Foursquare’s Android Wear app to discover hidden gems and be in the know about the best places to eat, drink and explore. With their upcoming 2.0 app, the team has a clean new canvas for rich notifications giving users an immersive experience with Foursquare content.

“The standalone nature of the Android Wear 2.0 app will offer a big boost in search performance and app responsiveness so you spend less time staring at the screen and more time exploring the world around you,” said Kyle Fowler, Software Engineer at Foursquare.
Lifesum

Lifesum helps users make better food choices, improve their exercise, and reach health goals. The upcoming 2.0 experience complements the existing Lifesum mobile app and as a standalone app, it will allow users to more easily track water and meals throughout the day.

“It's all about increasing access and being there for the user in a quick and simple way. We believe a simplified way of tracking meals and water will make it easier for our users on their journey of becoming healthier and happier,” said Joakim Hammer, Android Developer at Lifesum

Check out g.co/wearpreview for the latest builds and documentation about the recently released Android Wear Developer Preview 4.
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Android Wear 2.0 Developer Preview 4: Authentication, In-App Billing, and more

Posted by Hoi Lam, Developer Advocate

A key part of Android Wear 2.0 is letting watch apps work as standalone apps, so users can respond to messages, track their fitness, and use their favorite apps, even when their phone isn't around. Developer Preview 4 includes a number of new APIs that will help you build more powerful standalone apps.

Seamless authentication

To make authentication a seamless experience for both Android phone and iPhone users, we have created new APIs for OAuth and added support for one-click Google Sign-in. With the OAuth API for Android Wear, users can tap a button on the watch that opens an authentication screen on the phone. Your watch app can then authenticate with your server side APIs directly. With Google Sign-In, it's even easier. All the user needs to do is select which account they want to authenticate with and they are done.

In-app billing

In addition to paid apps, we have added in-app billing support, to give you another way to monetize your Android Wear app or watch face. Users can authorize purchases quickly and easily on the watch through a 4-digit Google Account PIN. Whether it's new levels in a game or new styles on a watch face, if you can build it, users can buy it.

Cross-device promotion

What if your watch app doesn't work standalone? Or what if it offers a better user experience when both the watch and phone apps are installed? We've been listening carefully to your feedback, and we've added two new APIs (PlayStoreAvailability and RemoteIntent) to help you navigate users to the Play Store on a paired device so they can more easily install your app. Developers can also open custom URLs on the phone from the watch via the new RemoteIntent API; no phone app or data layer is required. 

// Check Play Store is available
int playStoreAvailabilityOnPhone =
    PlayStoreAvailability.getPlayStoreAvailabilityOnPhone(getApplicationContext());

if (playStoreAvailabilityOnPhone == PlayStoreAvailability.PLAY_STORE_ON_PHONE_AVAILABLE) {
    // To launch a web URL, setData to Uri.parse("https://g.co/wearpreview")
    Intent intent =
        new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW)
            .addCategory(Intent.CATEGORY_BROWSABLE)
            .setData(Uri.parse("market://details?id=com.google.android.wearable.app"));
    // mResultReceiver is optional; it can be null.
    RemoteIntent.startRemoteActivity(this, intent, mResultReceiver);
}

Swipe-to-dismiss is back

Many of you have given us the feedback that the swipe-to-dismiss gesture from Android Wear 1.0 is an intuitive time-saver. We agree, and have reverted back to the previous behavior with this developer preview release. To support swipe-to-dismiss in this release, we've made the following platform and API changes:

  • Activities now automatically support swipe-to-dismiss. Swiping an activity from left to right will result in it being dismissed and the app will navigate down the back stack.
  • New Fragment and View support. Developers can wrap the containing views of a Fragment or Views in general in the new SwipeDismissFrameLayout to implement custom actions such as going down the back stack when the user swipes rather than exiting the activity.
  • Hardware button now maps to "power" instead of "back" which means it can no longer be intercepted by apps.

Additional details are available under the behavior changes section of the Android Wear Preview site.

Compatibility with Android Wear 1.0 apps

Android Wear apps packaged using the legacy embedded app mechanism can now be delivered to Android Wear 2.0 watches. When a user installs a phone app that also contains an embedded Android Wear app, the user will be prompted to install the embedded app via a notification. If they choose not to install the embedded app at that moment, they can find it in the Play Store on Android Wear under a special section called "Apps you've used".

Despite support for the existing mechanism, there are significant benefits for apps that transition to the multi-APK delivery mechanism. Multi-APK allows the app to be searchable in the Play Store on Android Wear, to be eligible for merchandising on the homepage, and to be remotely installed from the web to the watch. As a result, we strongly recommend that developers move to multi-APK.

More additions in Developer Preview 4

  • Action and Navigation Drawers: An enhancement to peeking behavior allows the user to take action without scrolling all the way to the top or bottom of a list. Developers can further fine-tune drawer peeking behavior through new APIs, such as setShouldPeekOnScrollDown for the action drawer.
  • WearableRecyclerView: The curved layout is now opt-in, and with this, the WearableRecyclerView is now a drop-in replacement for RecyclerView.
  • Burn-in protection icon for complications: Complication data providers can now provide icons for use on screens susceptible to burn-in. These burn-in-safe icons are normally the outline of the icon in interactive mode. Previously, watch faces may have chosen not to display the icon at all in ambient mode to prevent screen burn-in.

Feedback welcome!

Thanks for all your terrific feedback on Android Wear 2.0. Check out g.co/wearpreview for the latest builds and documentation, keep the feedback coming by filing bugs or posting in our Android Wear Developers community, and stay tuned for Android Wear Developer Preview 5!

Android Developer Story: Hole19 improves user retention with Android Wear

Posted by Lily Sheringham, Google Play team

Based in Lisbon, Portugal, Hole19 is a golfing app which assists golfers before, during, and after their golfing journey with GPS and a digital scorecard. The app connects the golfing community with shared statistics for performance and golf courses, and now has close to 1 million users across all platforms.

Watch Anthony Douglas, Founder & CEO, and Fábio Carballo, Head Android Developer, explain how Hole19 doubled its number of Android Wear users in 6 months, and improved user engagement and retention on the platform. Also, hear how they are using APIs and the latest Wear 2.0 features to connect users to their golfing data and improve the user experience.


Learn more how to get started with Android Wear and get the Playbook for Developers app to stay up-to-date with more features and best practices that will help you grow a successful business on Google Play.