Android Wear will soon support custom watch faces

Google on Thursday announced that Android Wear smartwatch developers will soon be able to create custom watch faces. Google says that since the launch of Android Wear in March, creating customized watch faces was the most requested feature by developers. It added the team is working hard to create a API for the same, due alongside the Android L update for the wearable platform. “Customization has helped Android thrive, and the same will be true for Android Wear. And to make sure that you’re able to create the richest experience possible, we’re hard at work on a custom watch face API,” said Wayne Piekarski, Senior Developer Advocate at Google. Along with custom watch face API, Google has also addressed the tedious process of tweaking involved in making a watch face. 

Android Wear developers will soon be able to create customized designs for their smartwatch faces. Google will soon be releasing an official API that will enable developers to create third-party watch face designs for Android Wear devices. Custom watch faces is one of the most requested Android Wear features developers ask for, said Wayne Piekarski, a senior developer advocate for Google, in a post on Google+. “Customization has helped Android thrive, and the same will be true for Android Wear,” Piekarski said. “We are working to make this as simple as possible for you so that it’s easy to make good-looking faces that work well across multiple form factors, conserve battery, and display the user’s card stream nicely.” Developers can already create their own watch face designs with “a fair bit of tweakin,g” but Piekarski suggested developers don’t post their own designs until the official API is released in order to ensure stability and compatibility with future versions of Android Wear. Piekarski did not reveal exact timing for when the official API would be available but said some of the features likely wouldn’t be ready until Android Wear is migrated to Android L, the newest version of Android, which would be “later this year.”