In-depth with Android Wear, Google’s quantum leap of a smartwatch OS

Yesterday(18.03.14), Google announced Android Wear, its wearable device platform for smartwatches. Android Wear is a shrunken-down, watch-going version of KitKat that looks poised to take over the wearables market. After poring over tons of websites and digging around in the emulator, we've scraped together just about all the information that's out there, so if you want to know what the future of smartwatches looks like, read on.

This is the home screen of Android Wear. At the top is a very faint "G" button. When pressed, the device starts listening for voice commands. If buttons aren't really your thing, an "OK Google" hotword will work, too. Below the button is a notification showing the time and weather. Tapping on the weather will expand it, and swiping left will open the extended forecast. Swiping up will show more notifications, one at a time.

Every UI element in Android Wear seems to work in this manner. Tapping on the center of the screen will expand whatever is on it; swiping horizontally will do something related to the current screen, either showing options or more details; and swiping up or down will go to other areas. If you're off in a menu, you don't have to swipe back to center in order to swipe up, either—just swipe up or down from anywhere in the menu to go to the next notification.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/03/in-depth-with-android-wear-googles-quantum-leap-of-a-smartwatch-os/