Gadgetory

haha let's talk about a version of Android that you wear we're right at the beginning in the miniaturization of technology you're gonna talk to your wrist how tall Barack Obama it's finally possible to make a powerful computer small enough to wear comfortably all day long Google's Android wear is a compact version of that operating system that really has to do three things run well on new devices like smartwatches get manufacturers to buy into that market and get consumers to do the same thing and who will pretty much delivered on almost every rumor we predicted and their full rollout of Android wear with big time support coming out of the gates with the LG G watch and Samsung's gear live just one more top to pay and the pizzas on its way the pretty gorgeous stainless steel and leather banded watch is here your watch will also provide intelligent answers to smokin questions he can even check his heart rate after a jog now Android wear on its own actually does very little a SmartWatch running it like a samsung gear live or an LG G watch has to first pair to a late-model android phone no windows phone no i phone support here once that pairing is done your watch starts to get fed the content it needs for some very simple notifications and basic interactions like reminders of your next appointment or simple guidance to get somewhere like your next appointment messages and easy ways to reply weather forecast coming up payment confirmations travel status updates now these are just some basic early use cases and of course an Android where's functionality is limited only to what developers can come up with which isn't much of a limitation at all but know that the mode here is to have very simple swipe and voice interactions between menus and information screens there's no keyboard on that watch now the first watch is out with Android where are the predictably nerdy Samsung gear live and LG G watch more interesting is the pending Motorola 360 this is a watch with a round face and a very jewelry like look Android wear is able to map it display an interface to the actual round display not just crudely crop it that's important because many like myself believe that a key part of Smart Watch success on any platform is going to be the ability for watch designers to really spread out aesthetically and not be limited to square textile displays another big step forward with Android wear is a degree of agnosticism in the past most smartwatches short past I should point out only worked with their own family of phones early Samsung Smart Watch has only worked with Samsung Galaxy phones and not even all of those that's not a formula for success going forward Android wear will allow the watch to work with any Android phone running 4.3 of the operating system or newer but still no windows phone iphone or blackberry coordination it's early days of course for the SmartWatch is not to mention the Android wear subset of them that said here's my memo to the Android wear team as well as the manufacturers building on it first make it smarter right now we feel the early Android wear watches are kind of giving scattershot display of information and content it doesn't really seem to map to my moment in the day as well as it could let's filter better make it indispensable this is still very much a luxury market nobody can't live without an Android wear SmartWatch let's find the really important use cases so it goes beyond the novelty stage we need to extend battery life we all have enough devices right now that to get plugged in every day and look like jewelry once you get past that first million geeks and early adopters nobody's going to buy a SmartWatch that looks like they strapped a smartphone on their wrist it is of course too soon to predict the growth curve for android wear let alone the broader SmartWatch market for a number of reasons first of all Apple hasn't even entered this space yet secondly most consumers have no idea what we're talking about thirdly the battle between fitness bands and smartwatches has to be sorted out and there is an awful lot of overlap there but for now at this moment android wear seems to be the biggest bear in a small growing and have to be chained