New Android Wear 2.0 Preview with Smart Replies, Watch App Store — Main Release Delayed until 2017

There are both good and bad news for Android Wear owners today — well, the good news are mostly reserved for a few lucky watch owners. But in short, a new Android Wear 2.0 Preview is available for download and flashing.

The new Developer Preview 3 brings some rather big additions, including the additions of a Google Play Store on Android Wear. This allows you to easily find and install apps directly on the watch, which synergies perfectly with the watch-only app capabilities of Android Wear 2.0 You can browse recommended apps in the home view, search for apps, and then install them on your watch, as well as update applications. This makes app management easier, and you can install the watch-app portion of a service so you don't need both the phone app and watch app, as the former are no longer necessary. Developers can now build and publish watch-only applications!

An on-watch store might sound clunky, but Google surveyed developers and ran studies that concluded users repeatedly looked for a way to discover new applications right from the watch. Developers can publish their apps on the Play Store for Android Wear by following these steps, making sure the Wear 2.0 apps set minSdkVersion to 24 or higher, use the runtime permissions model, and are uploaded via multi-APK using the Play Developer Console.

There are also a few new, useful features and optimizations, with a prominent one being improvements to complications for developers, a new UI component for developers to optimize vertical lists for round displays, and Smart Reply. That's right, Android Wear now generates Smart Reply responses for MessagingStyle notifications. These are generated by an on-watch machine learning model based on the context of the notification (no data is uploaded to the cloud to generate responses). Sadly, said notification style with images posted by standalone apps don't show images in the notification (bug), and there is no support for notification groups.

You'll need to flash the system image onto your watch and download the beta version of the Android Wear app on your device. Developers can also use the emulator to test their applications if they don't have a watch to test on. Hopefully you'll enjoy this preview, because the real deal is not coming for a while: Google now says that they've decided to continue the preview program into early 2017, and that the first watches will receive Android Wear 2.0 around that date. This means that the Android Wear 2.0 update won't come until next year for most of us, at the earliest. This also likely means we won't see Pixel watches this year.

Google has not mentioned any official reason for this delay in the release timeline, except the receipt of feedback from the developer community. And the delay of Android Wear 2.0 likely isn't good news for smartwatch OEMs either, as they would now have to settle with either the existing stable release, or question the future of the platform entirely. There are no new successors to existing smartwatches coming in from the big names, and even Huawei is in talks to jump ship to Tizen. Existing stakeholders who have invested in new smartwatches this year, like ASUS with its ZenWatch 3, are also not likely to be happy with how the timeline has taken a turn for the worse. All in all, considering the current position of Android Wear in the market in light of its competition, the delay in release must have been a very strong decision to take, just before the upcoming holiday season.

What are your thoughts on the delay in Android Wear 2.0 release? Also, how was your experience with the Dev Previews of Android Wear 2.0 so far? Let us know in the comments below!

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What Features Do You Want on Google Apps on Android?

Google Apps on Android are a love-hate affair. Average consumers find the pre-loaded set of Google Apps to fit within their requirements enough to not worry about alternatives. But on the other hand, the apps themselves are not the best examples of how to create guidelines, or how to make apps either.

The previous statement becomes clearer when you expand your scope to look at Google Apps on other ecosystems, like iOS or on desktop platforms like Chrome OS. Apps made by Google themselves on these platforms feature a different design, and often offer functionality that the Android app gets days, weeks and months later (looking at you, Hangouts). Some Android apps, like Youtube, are missing useful features present on desktop. So we ask you,

What Features do Google Apps on Android sorely lack, when compared to the same set of Google Apps on other platforms? Which was the most frustrating discrepancy you noticed when you switched from using Google Apps on Android to other platforms?

Let us know in the comments below!

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What Features Do You Want on Google Apps on Android?

Google Apps on Android are a love-hate affair. Average consumers find the pre-loaded set of Google Apps to fit within their requirements enough to not worry about alternatives. But on the other hand, the apps themselves are not the best examples of how to create guidelines, or how to make apps either.

The previous statement becomes clearer when you expand your scope to look at Google Apps on other ecosystems, like iOS or on desktop platforms like Chrome OS. Apps made by Google themselves on these platforms feature a different design, and often offer functionality that the Android app gets days, weeks and months later (looking at you, Hangouts). Some Android apps, like Youtube, are missing useful features present on desktop. So we ask you,

What Features do Google Apps on Android sorely lack, when compared to the same set of Google Apps on other platforms? Which was the most frustrating discrepancy you noticed when you switched from using Google Apps on Android to other platforms?

Let us know in the comments below!

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Samsung is Waiting to See How the VR Market Develops

Samsung is satisfied with the progress they’ve made in the mobile VR space thanks to the Gear VR for the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note series. However, they do realize that the display technology isn’t quite there yet and this is why they’ve been holding back on releasing a standalone VR headset. The company also says VR is at the peak of its hype phase, and they want to wait and see if the market matures.

In case you don’t remember, Samsung confirmed they were working on a standalone VR headset back in April of this year. As with most products that big companies work on, not all of them will see the light of day. A lot of them are worked on to help progress the technology to a level where consumers will he happy with it. This is what we’re currently seeing at Samsung with a VR headset that doesn’t require a smartphone.

Samsung believes display technology needs to advance to at least twice the pixel density that we have in smartphones today. So it looks like the company is waiting and seeing how the experience of a standalone VR headset will be with Ultra HD display panels. Samsung’s President & Chief Strategy Officer, Young Sohn, says this could be an incentive for the company to advance the technology faster, but it would cost them at least $5 to $10 billion to do so and develop a 10K mobile display.

As as we mentioned earlier, they just don’t know if the VR market is worth that type of investment right now. They are willing to do so if the customers prove they are willing to buy into this technology, but they are worried the market will stagnate after the hype dies down. Sohn says it’s “a bit of a chicken and egg problem right now,” and would rather just wait and see how the market evolves before taking a big leap like that.

Source: TechCrunch

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Samsung is Waiting to See How the VR Market Develops

Samsung is satisfied with the progress they've made in the mobile VR space thanks to the Gear VR for the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note series. However, they do realize that the display technology isn't quite there yet and this is why they've been holding back on releasing a standalone VR headset. The company also says VR is at the peak of its hype phase, and they want to wait and see if the market matures.

In case you don't remember, Samsung confirmed they were working on a standalone VR headset back in April of this year. As with most products that big companies work on, not all of them will see the light of day. A lot of them are worked on to help progress the technology to a level where consumers will he happy with it. This is what we're currently seeing at Samsung with a VR headset that doesn't require a smartphone.

Samsung believes display technology needs to advance to at least twice the pixel density that we have in smartphones today. So it looks like the company is waiting and seeing how the experience of a standalone VR headset will be with Ultra HD display panels. Samsung's President & Chief Strategy Officer, Young Sohn, says this could be an incentive for the company to advance the technology faster, but it would cost them at least $5 to $10 billion to do so and develop a 10K mobile display.

As as we mentioned earlier, they just don't know if the VR market is worth that type of investment right now. They are willing to do so if the customers prove they are willing to buy into this technology, but they are worried the market will stagnate after the hype dies down. Sohn says it's "a bit of a chicken and egg problem right now," and would rather just wait and see how the market evolves before taking a big leap like that.

Source: TechCrunch

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XDA Sub Forums For Xiaomi Mi 5s Now Live!

Following up on the launch of the Xiaomi Mi 5s in China, XDA sub forums for the device have been created! Talk and discuss all about the phone with other forum members!

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XDA Sub Forums For Xiaomi Mi 5s Now Live!

Following up on the launch of the Xiaomi Mi 5s in China, XDA sub forums for the device have been created! Talk and discuss all about the phone with other forum members!

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via IFTTT