We could not make it through the first day of Google I/O without some mention of Glass…one of Google’s proudest accomplishments. Google is working on Glass and we may even see a public launch by the end of this year, but Google did not want to focus on Glass at the I/O Conference…there were too many other new items to concentrate on rather than bring up a lot of questions about Glass. However, one great piece of news from today’s announcement – Android Wear notifications will now be sent from your smartphone to BOTH your Android Wear smartwatch AND directly to Glass, once a software upgrade is sent out to Glass in the next few months. Obviously, the notifications will look a bit different (see below), but it is nice to know that Glass will be able to receive them as well and accomplish what Google is trying to do – make your smartphone, smartwatch and Glass all ‘talk’ to one another.
This has a few ramifications – this means that no changes in the App code would need to be changed for the notifications to go to Glass from your smartphone…any applications that are setup to send notifications to Android Wear will automatically go to the smartwatch and Glass. The programmers need only worry about writing their phone Apps to push notifications out to Android Wear and you will see them on the smartphone, smartwatch and Glass.
For Glass users this means that you may have to have less individual Apps on your Glass – for instance, if you setup your Twitter App on your smartphone to send out an Android Wear notification, you will pick up that Twitter notification on your Glass without actually having to have a Twitter App on Glass. This capability could make it easier for App developers, programmers and Glass users.
This is just one of many gems that were mined at Google I/O yesterday…I wonder what tomorrow has in store. Please hook up with us on our Google+ Page and let us know if you have Glass, are planning on purchasing an Android Wear smartwatch and if you are happy about what you heard at I/O today…as always, we would love to hear from you.