Ever since smartwatches came into the market; there is no doubt that Android Wear is playing catch up to the Apple Watch’s capabilities.
This device has amazing capabilities that include placing and responding to calls right from the wristwatch, something that owners of Android Wear users have been envying for quite some time now. Starting today, this is no more as Google has updated the OS to a new Android Wear 1.4 Marshmallow, bringing in new capabilities to match what Apple Watch users are enjoying.
In the updated OS, users of Android Wear devices will be able to place as well as listen to voice calls via any supported smartwatch. Even though this is the main highlight of the updated OS, there is more. Users will also be able to enjoy voice dictation with respect to third-party chat apps such as WhatsApp. In addition to this, gestures have been introduced to the device to help you carry on with these functions with ease.
Just as you’d expect, the phone calls can be initiated from the device without the need of a phone. But the smartwatch must have an inbuilt speaker for this to work. Using the same speaker, you can also listen to voicemail messages as well as recordings from other apps.
Send messages directly from your wristwatch
If your wristwatch comes without an internal speaker, don’t worry. There is still a lot for you to enjoy on this new OS. As mentioned earlier, the update brings the capability to send messages right from the watch. With the dictation feature, users of popular chat apps such as WhatsApp and Viber can easily issue a command for a message to be created and sent to a specific user thanks to Google Now.
The newly added gestures also help a lot when it comes to one-handed persons. Theoretically, one will be able to easily scroll through notifications as well as expand the view using one hand.
Google has been pushing a series of updates to this OS in the recent past, with the most recent one being the introduction of cellular support. This is obviously a bid to prepare itself for competition against the rumored Apple Watch 2 that is expected to be unveiled alongside the iPhone 7 later on in September this year.
The new Android Wear 1.4 Marshmallow update will be rolling out to all Android Wear devices in the next coming weeks.