Google

Google

Google

Google

Google announced Android Wear 2.0 alongside what later became Android Nougat at Google I/O a few months ago, but aside from a second Wear 2.0 developer preview build in July, we haven't heard much since. There's good and bad news on that front: the good news is that Google is releasing a third Wear 2.0 developer preview today with some new features and tweaks. The bad news is that the final release of the software is being delayed.

Wear 2.0's release date has been pushed back from a vague "this fall" window to an equally vague "early 2017" window, presumably so Google can keep testing and tweaking. To that end, Google will release a fourth developer preview build, and the 2.0 update will begin trickling out to supported watches after that.

The biggest addition to the Android Wear Developer Preview 4 is a watch version of the Google Play store that can browse and download watch apps and watch faces without your phone—developers told Google that they wanted watch apps to be easier to find, and this is Google's answer. Text entry still looks painful, and relatively wimpy watch hardware may slow things down, but if the eventual goal is to make watches that can operate independently of phones, this is an important step.

The watch-exclusive store also means that developers can release watch apps that are totally independent of phone apps. Historically, Wear apps have been bundled in standard phone apps—download a phone app, and then the wearable app would be downloaded to the watch from the phone. Apps can still be downloaded and installed this way, but as of Wear 2.0 it will no longer be strictly necessary.

Other tweaks in the new preview build include permission requests for watch complications, a "recycler view" that lets developers display vertical lists of items in a way that will look good on square and round watch faces (the Wear 2.0 app picker uses the same view), and inline actions for new notifications (you would previously need to swipe down on a notification to expose a quick action menu).

Whether your new watch will receive Wear 2.0 is going to be up to its manufacturer, at least in part. The LGE Watch Urbane 2nd Edition and Huawei Watch are safe bets since they're still the only devices you can use to test these preview builds, but we already know that early Wear watches like the LG G Watch and first-generation Moto 360 will be missing out.

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