Google’s delayed launch of Android Wear 2.0 has hit another road mark with the fifth and final developer preview launching today, ahead of an ‘early February’ release of the full version.
The fifth and final developer preview includes three major updates including a new tweak to the navigation drawer and a new complication API, but the big one is the inclusion of NFC HCE support for mobile payments – Android Pay on your wrist is finally here…if your watch has NFC.
- Navigation Drawer: Flip a flag to toggle to the single-page, icon-only action drawer, which provides faster, more streamlined navigation to different views in your app.
- NFC HCE support: NFC Host Card Emulation FEATURE_NFC_HOST_CARD_EMULATION is now supported.
- ProGuard and Complication API: New ProGuard configuration means complication data container classes will no longer be obfuscated. This fixes a ClassNotFoundException when watch faces are trying to access data supplied by a complication data provider.
Google is advising that any developer wanting their app ready for day 1 of the Android Wear 2.0 launch should update their app and submit it to Google Play now. Google says that a full launch will be coming ‘early February’, though previous leaks have pegged the launch at February 9th.
The fifth dev preview is now live for anyone with an LGE Watch Urbane 2nd Edition or Huawei Watch to try out, so if you want to jump on board head over to g.co/wearpreview and grab it.
