Now you can make calls, text, and control your Android Wear Watch with gestures

Do you own an Android Wear smartwatch and seethe with jealousy when you see your Apple Watch-touting compatriot answer a call from his or her wrist? Fret not. Starting now, Google is rolling out a big update — 1.4 Marshmallow — to Android Wear devices that’ll let you channel your inner Dick Tracy by making and listening to calls on supported smartwatches. But that’s not the only feature in tow. The new firmware adds voice dictation for third-party messaging apps such as WhatsApp, plus wacky new gestures with which to perform the various functions of your watch.

Phone call support is the undoubted highlight, and works exactly as you’d expect. If you’re the lucky owner of an Android Wear watch with a built-in speaker — i.e., the Huawei Watch or Asus ZenWatch 2 — you can initiate or receive calls from your wristwatch instead of your phone. The update lets you put that speaker to good use in other ways, too. You can listen to voicemails and audio from apps such as Glide.

Luckily for the many folks whose Android Wear watch lacks the aforementioned speaker, calling isn’t the only new luxury that the update affords. Third-party messaging services such as Telegram, WhatsApp, and Viber now sport wrist-based dictation via a new contextual command — saying “OK Google, Send a WhatsApp message” will, for example, send a WhatsApp message. And last but not least, new gestures make it easier to expand and scroll through notifications one-handed … in theory.

AndroidWear-DesignedForYourWrist

The new gestures require a bit of explanation. To expand an Android Wear card, you hold your arm away from your body and push quickly downward, as if depressing a bicycle pump. Repeating that motion moves through the selected card’s actions (e.g., “Open on phone” or “Block app”). To go back to a previous screen, you hold your arm out and do the reverse: pivot upward. To return to the watch’s face, you shake your wrist in any direction. Finally, to open the settings menu from the watch face, you turn your wrist away from you and then quickly flick it quickly — quickly! — back toward you. Got it? Good.

Convoluted new gestures (to put it mildly) aside, update 1.4 Marshmallow is the latest in a series of significant, recent upgrades to Android Wear. In November, Google introduced cellular support for watches with the requisite radios, and in June, it added emoji drawing and Wi-Fi connectivity. With the successor to the Apple Watch rumored to be unveiled in Fall alongside the iPhone 7, the improvements can’t come soon enough.

Waiting frantically for the update? Google says it’ll roll out to all Android Wear watches over the next few weeks.

from Planet GS via John Jason Fallows on Inoreader http://ift.tt/1P9MfYK
Kyle Wiggers