The Android Wear platform has been around for over a year now, and although it has come a long way since launching with the LG G Watch and Moto 360, we are looking forward to seeing it evolve even more. The next Android Wear update was originally scheduled to be released on July 28th, but this has now been postponed to an unspecified date in August. This doesn’t mean that we have to wait to find out about some of the alleged new features though.

Thanks to the information provided to Phandroid, we are able to see that the next Android Wear update will include the ability to tap the watch display once to change aesthetics, launch activities, inline expansion and more. While there’s already third-party watch faces that offer the tap once gesture, it’s a feature that has to be hacked in by the developer, which often leads to system issues. Below are some examples of what a single tap can do, with the first example showing how the user could cycle through a list of options, i.e. different watch faces.

A single tap could also bring up more information from a watch face, the weather, for example, as seen below.

Or, the single tap could bring up your fitness information, which could prove handy if you are at the gym.

Finally, the single tap could be used to open a new app, which would then slide in from the right of the display. It’s said that Google has informed Android Wear developers of the new features so that they can update their apps accordingly when the update is released. If Google hasn’t been in touch, you shouldn’t have to wait too long to get access to the new API.

Together is a new feature that gives the ability for Android Wear users to send messages, emoji’s, stickers and doodles to other Android Wear users, as seen mentioned in the strings of code below:

“Stay together by sending messages directly to your friend’s watch face”

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
<string name=”wc_doodle_message_received”>%1$s sent you a doodle with %2$s</string>
<string name=”wc_photo_message_received”>%1$s sent you a photo with %2$s</string>
<string name=”wc_sticker_message_received”>%1$s sent you a sticker with %2$s</string>
<string name=”wc_message_received”>%1$s sent you a message with %2$s</string>

At present, it isn’t known whether the Together function will be launched as a system app or limited to just the one watch face. If it was indeed limited in use to the one watch face, it wouldn’t be very useful at all. It should be said that the information given to Phandroid wasn’t up to date, which means it may well have just been the starting point.

Finally, if you’re rocking an LG G Watch R, you’ve probably been waiting patiently for its WiFi capability to be activated, as promised by LG. This next Android Wear update appears to be the one you’ve been waiting for, now its just a matter of time until the update is released.

Are you excited about this upcoming Android Wear update? Let us know what features you would like to see included in the comments below.