Android Wear 2.0 Smartwatch News Update: Android Wear Surprises Users of Its Tiny Keyboard

Internet search giant Google introduces Android Wear 2.0, the next generation OS for wearable platforms, the tech company's biggest software update to date for smart watches with three main improvement goals in mind: watch faces, messaging, and fitness.

Google's wearable update was recently announced at Google's I/O conference introducing a slew of huge enhancements such as a sleeker interface, standalone apps, 'complications' or widgets, messaging enhancements like the surprising tiny keyboard, and Google Fit-related improvements.

Here is a quick summary of what's new with Android Wear 2.0:

STANDALONE APPS

With standalone apps, Android-based wearables can finally be divorced from smartphones. With Android Wear 2.0's direct internet access via Bluetooth connection, Wi-Fi, or wireless mobile network, wearable devices can function independently without sticking to either an Android smartphone or iPhone, ZDNET reported.

NEW LOOK

User interface changes is noticeable with a quick glance. As per VentureBeat, the UI has been deliberately tweaked in favor of a dark color palette to make the smartwatch easier on the eyes when in dark places as well as to make battery consumption more efficient when running on OLED screens. The app launcher has been redesigned to favor round watch faces for now (a design for square watches is still under development) offering a carousel-style app menu. To choose an app, just slide the finger around the edge of the screen. Also, the expanded notification design forces the user to take an immediate action on notification that buzzes on the screen, otherwise, the display will stay unchanged.

MESSAGING

The messaging experience can be innovative and annoying at the same time. Apparently, Google may have seriously thought that users do a lot of messaging using smartwatches so they added a tiny QWERTY keyboard with Swipe-like features plus handwriting support, Yahoo News reported.

FITNESS

Google Fit also gets a fresh round of upgrade with the fitness-oriented platform as it counts users' fitness data and allows other third-party fitness apps to work seamlessly with Google Fit.

WATCH FACE

With Android Wear 2.0, Complications API is raised on entirely new level which means that it'll be easier for users to select and add data from any third-party apps or source and allow widgets to be shown on a watch face according to Green Bot.

With Android Wear 2.0, the updates sound pretty much impressive although it remains to be seen how it will compare with other smartwatches running on a different software in the market today.