Google Play Services is that magic service that runs in the background of Android devices, updating functionality in the background outside of the often slow and archaic carrier approval process. The latest update – Google Play Services 7.3 – has been announced on the Android Developers site and while most of it is pretty dry, there’s an interesting new feature for Android Wear.
Android Wear is about to get a big boost with Android Wear 5.1.1 which will roll out to your wrist in the coming weeks, bringing new gestures, Wi-Fi support (to most of them), and easier access to contacts and apps. What Google Play Services will do is let you pair multiple Android Wear devices to the one phone.
There’s other goodies for developers included in the update, with an improved Location API that should in theory save battery life by batching requests to the location API cutting down on requests.
You can watch the developer update video on YouTube (or below), and to make sure you have the latest APIs, ensure your SDK is up to date and check out the Google Play Services section of the Android Developers site.
This opens some interesting opportunities. They could make Android Wear devices designed to be worn for specific situations – exercise or sleeping, say. I would really like a cheap low res watch to wear when sleeping, with a neoprene band. I could configure a different set of allowed notifications, so I won’t be woken by Twitter or SMS messages. And then I get to use the various sleep tracking apps while still charging my day watch overnight. A ruggedised watch for outdoor activities that you set up for automatic GPS tracking…
The comments section for background services like this are full of idiots. The Webkit one is the worst I’ve come across.