Google starts letting apps create custom Wear OS tiles



[ad_1]

As of 2019, swiping left on the Wear OS clock faces would show you “Tiles” for weather, news headlines, and more. Only proprietary Google apps have ever been able to provide this visible information. This is finally changing with Google now allowing third-party developers to create custom Wear OS tiles.

Google today announced that the Jetpack Tiles library is in alpha release. Developers can start creating custom tiles right now with today’s announcement explaining how end users will get access to them this spring after a “corresponding Wear OS platform update”, which is expected to be in. the vein of H MR2 (i.e. an H MR3-esque version).

Tiles can be designed for many use cases, such as tracking the progress of the user’s daily activity, quickly starting a workout, starting a recently played song, or sending a message. ‘a message to a favorite contact. While apps can be immersive, tiles load quickly and focus on the user’s immediate needs. If the user wants more information, you can tap Tiles to open a related app on the watch or phone for a deeper experience.

Developer documentation on how to create them in Android Studio is now available, while Google offers best practices including:

  • Thumbnails are for visible information that users can read in seconds. Show only the most important content with a clear hierarchy of information.
  • To protect the user’s battery, avoid items that require frequent re-rendering.
  • Record highly interactive experiences for your activities. However, you can log into these activities from your Tile.
  • Avoid text like “there are ax minutes” or “in x minutes” for past or future events, as this requires frequent updates. Instead, display the actual start or end time, or use an instruction such as “in the past”.
  • Avoid long-running asynchronous work when providing the layout and / or resources of a mosaic dataset. Your Tile code should execute quickly.
  • Consider allowing the user to tap Tiles to learn more and act in an overlay, where there is support for rich interactivity and where the user can scroll for more information.
  • If you have a large application that supports the user with multiple tasks, consider creating a tile for each task. For example, a fitness app might have a Goals tile and a Training Activity tile.

The latest proprietary Tiles have introduced revamped weather and allow users to quickly start a breathing session.

Learn more about Wear OS:

FTC: We use automatic income generating affiliate links. After.


Check out 9to5Google on YouTube for more news:

[ad_2]

Source link