The Apple Watch is coming out this week, but Google is also hard at work on its own wearables platform. Today the company is launching a new Android Wear update that seems to close many of the functionality gaps between Wear and the Apple Watch. A little over a month ago, we wrote an article titled "Apple’s contribution to the smartwatch: An app-centric approach and Wi-Fi," and guess what's in today's update?

Wi-Fi support—pairing over the Internet?!

Yep, Wear is getting Wi-Fi support. This will be nice for home use. Wi-Fi has a much larger range than Bluetooth, so users can leave their phone somewhere in their house and the watch will still work. Interestingly, the phone still has to be on and connected to the Internet, but the phone and watch don't have to be on the same Wi-Fi network. Google even lists cellular data as an acceptable method for your phone to be online, so presumably the phone and watch communicate over the Internet.

Wi-Fi is definitely more power-hungry than Bluetooth, though, so how this affects battery life will be a concern.

A top-level app list

Previously, apps on Android Wear were relegated to a "Start" ghetto, which took multiple steps to access. You had to tap on the time, scroll down to the bottom of the voice command list, hit start, and then you would see a list of apps. It made apps on Android Wear feel like an afterthought.

The new update puts apps front-and-center. Just tap on the time and you'll be presented with a list of apps. Scrolling up and down scrolls through the app list, and swiping horizontally will move to another new screen: contacts. Swipe horizontally again and you'll get the list of voice commands. This looks like a great method to access apps, and it seems completely natural in Android Wear's swipe-based UI.

This was the biggest difference we saw between the Apple Watch and Android Wear, and now the two seem to be on even footing when it comes to app access. We would still like to see a way for apps to add voice commands to the voice command list. Right now they can take over existing ones, but there's no way for developers to add new functionality to the voice commands.

Drawing Emoji

The Apple Watch has a "Sketch" feature that lets you send freeform doodles to your Apple Watch-toting friends. While Android Wear doesn't have the same thing (not that we were really asking for it), it did add a similar feature: draw an emoji. In response to a message, instead of one of the canned responses or replying by voice, you can draw an emoji symbol, and Android Wear will try to recognize your doodle and replace it with a stock emoji. It's sort of like handwriting recognition, but for emoji instead of letters. Google says this can recognize "hundreds" of emojis.

Speaking of handwriting recognition, does it have to be only emoji? Why can't it also recognize letters? Google did just launch a handwriting keyboard, and we bet a tiny version of that would work well on a watch.

Twist your wrist to advance cards

If you've got your hands full and you really, really need to see the next card, Google has added this little gesture that can scroll through cards. It's hard to tell how useful it is without trying, but any options for one-handed operation sound good to us.

Always-on apps

Android has had an "always-on" mode for the watch face since launch. This is a low-power mode that dims the screen to black and white, but still shows the time to allow for easy glancing. But what if you want to easily glance at something else? A new always-on app mode allows you to pin an app onto the home screen, and when the screen timeout happens, you just see a black and white version of the app.

This sounds like a perfect feature. It will be great for a shopping list at the grocery store or for displaying a map while running. Google's blog post doesn't mention how to turn it on, though—hopefully it's something easy like a long-tap.

And now, we wait

Unfortunately, we haven't been able to try the update yet. Like all Android releases, it's on a slow, random rollout, and there is no on-demand download for Android Wear updates the way there is for Nexus devices. Google says the update is coming to "all seven Android Wear watches over the next few weeks," but it will hit the LG Watch Urbane first.