New Android Wear 2.0 Features Can Now Arrive Via Play Store

Gone are the days when Android users had to wait months for an updated service or native app because they were tied to monolithic firmware updates. These key updates are now sent via the Google Play Store for Android smartphones. Google is finally doing the same for Android Wear as well. Google can now add new features and services for Android Wear 2.0 through the Play Store.

Google’s Hoi Lam confirmed on Google+ that new features for Android Wear 2.0 can now be delivered through the Play Store when the Android Wear app on the smartwatch is updated. The aim with this is to publish more timely improvements between full over-the-air firmware updates that can often take months to arrive after they’ve been released.

The company launched one such update for Android Wear 2.0 last week which included third-party chat app support in Contacts, improved Play Store discoverability for new users, reduced accidental entry into the watch face picker, and also brought several other features and bug fixes.

Now that this functionality is working, Google will be able to add new features to its wearable device platform in the future through app updates without having to wait to bundle them into over-the-air firmware updates. It’s going to make it much faster for the company to roll out these features.

Lam says that the company is going to release additional updates like this in the coming months.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Gadgets
Tags: Android Wear 2.0, Google, Wearable Tech