Google’s Android Wear initiative may be in the midst of what could be called a false start, but that problem maybe alleviated once the big software companies start to integrate wearable support into their apps. Two giants of the messaging world have done just that over the last couple of days, with both Facebook and WhatsApp issuing updates to their Android apps that give Android Wear, err, wearers a little taste of the future.
The first to dip its toe in the water was WhatsApp, with a newly updated version of its cross-platform messenger being made available for its Android users. Interestingly though, the new update hasn’t yet made its way to the Google Play Store, which leads us to wonder whether the company sees this version as a public beta of sorts. It’s available to download manually from the WhatsApp website should you wish to get your hands on it.
Once you’ve shoehorned the updated WhatsApp onto your phone, you’ll be able to receive notifications of new messages right on your wrist. What’s more though, you’ll also be able to reply to those messages by talking into it, FBI-style. You might feel a bit of a prat and, we dare say look like one, but hey. This is the future after all.
Facebook’s new version of Facebook Messenger has made its way to the Play Store and offers similar new-message notifications. You can like a particularly great message too, should the need arise, as well as that rather off-putting voice reply functionality that we had hoped would die so quickly that it never found its way out of WhatsApp.
Oh well.
In reality we doubt most people will be willing to talk into their watches at all, but we also said the same thing about Bluetooth earpieces and look how they ended up attached to the ear of everyone who thought they were more important than they really were.
So yeah, don’t talk into your wrist folks. That’s a free tip on us.
As mentioned before, the updated version of Facebook Messenger can be grabbed from the Play Store, whilst the version of WhatsApp with support for Android Wear can be picked up from its developer’s website (whatsapp.com/android).
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