The smartwatches are here! Pre-orders of the first Android Wear watches from LG and Samsung
ship today. But what can you do with your new toy when it actually
shows up? You can get notifications on your wrist(!) sure, but there's
more where that came from. Here are some of the highlights.
In addition to the built-in notification functionality—which is pretty great in and of itself—the
first Wear-compatible apps are here as well, and between them, your
wrist can gain a whole bunch of superpowers from ranging from "awesome"
to "stupid but still kind of awesome." And all you have to do is have
the app on your phone, no wrist-installation required.
1. Control your music even with dumb headphones.
Some
headphones have buttons on them so you can pause your hawt dubstep jams
when a human attempts to talk to you. Some don't. With Android Wear it
doesn't matter; every music/podcast/audiobook/radio app that can
generate an actionable notification on your phone can do it on your
wrist. Instant pause button.
2. Order a pizza
Google showed this one off on stage at I/O, and thanks to Android Wear apps you can try it on your own. With Eat24's
Android Wear integration, you can re-order from your favorite fooderies
with a couple of taps or a few voice commands. No browsing new
restaurants or anything, but given the constraints of navigating a
smartwatch screen, you wouldn't want to anyway.
3. Turn off the lights.
If you happen to have a houseful of Philips Hue lights—or
even just one—they just got a new switch on your wrist. You can use the
card the app will generate to turn your lights on and off, or you can
dig deeper into the on-watch app itself to toy with the color and other
settings.
4. Board a plane.
If
you just happen to be taking a trip by way of Delta Airlines in the
near future, you'll find you have a handy new way to show your boarding
pass. With the new Android Wear functionality, the Delta Airlines app
can push your boarding pass info to your wrist-screen in the form of a
big, ugly QR code. Explaining to the gate attendant that "No but really.
This is my boarding pass" is up to you though.
5. Call a car home.
Next time you need a ride home, you can keep your phone in your pocket. With Lyft's Wear functionality you're just a few taps away from calling a car to your saved destinations. Could you get any lazier? Maybe!
6. Hit on strangers.
Tinder
is on a watch! It's pretty much... just Tinder on a watch. Swipe away,
and rest assured no one will know how geeky you are until you actually
meet up. "So where did you guys meet?" "Oh, you know. A dating app on my
smartwatch."
7. Have a singalong.
musiXmatch Music Player,
which plays music from your library while throwing the lyrics on your
phone screen, now works on watches as well. Karaoke just got even
goofier.
8. Tweet
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With a new app called Bunting,
tweeting is as easy as just shouting at your wrist. Finally you can
annoy the people around you as much as you do your followers.
9. Brush up on your language skills.
You might not be able to learn a second language on your watch, but with Duolingo
you can at least brush up on it. With Android Wear functionality, the
language app can give you little flashcard quizzes on your second
language of choice right from your wrist.
10. Get notifications when stuff you like is nearby.
Someday Android Wear might be able to notify you when there are points of interest nearby on its own. But until then, Pinterest
will pick up the slack. Thanks to Android Wear the app will now point
out if you're in the neighborhood of places you've pinned.
11. Set up a "Do Anything" button.
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Maybe the most powerful trick Android Wear has so far is thanks to If This Then That. With the app's new watch-based functionality, you can program a watch button that does just about anything. So far, popular recipes
include uploading a map of your location to Facebook and jerry-rigging a
"Find My Phone" feature, but the possibilities are limited only by your
imagination.
And that's
just the tip of the iceberg. The stable of apps that are actively
supporting Android Wear is actually pretty limited right now, so it'll
only get better down the line. In the meantime, get tinkering and see
what handy functionality you can scare up, and if we missed anything
good, drop it below.
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