Despite some advances, Android Wear 2.0 is not progress

Android Wear has been out for a while now. I’m a bit late to the party – totally get that. But I just got an LG Watch Style and I’ve been sporting it for a couple of weeks now. I like the watch, itself. It has a nice build and it’s, well, stylish, but Android Wear 2.0 keeps driving me up a bit of a wall, and I just wanted to clear the air. There has been some Android Wear progress, but I’ve had a few issues with the operating system and a few tweaks could really help.

First, I’d like to say, that I love the way Android Wear 2.0 handles things like emails. The archive control is front and center, and since I archive a lot, that’s important to me. I don’t have to struggle with notifications like I’ve had to on Android Wear 1.5. The new UI is nice, keeping your app list out of the way, along the left side of the watch. All neat things, but while we’re on the topic, let’s talk about that list of apps.

Lefty Loosey

The world is full of right-handed people. The world is less full of left handed people. I’m weird. I’m a righty who wears my watch on my right wrist. It’s a long story. Anyway, as I was saying the app list running along the left side of the screen is really convenient for keeping your hand out of the way while scrolling through the list – unless you’re wearing the watch on your right hand. Then, your hand is still getting in the way.

Android Wear 2.0 needs a left-handed mode. Granted, it’s not a 50/50 split. Left handers represent only ten percent of the population. With me, it’s ten percent plus one, but our lefties (which include my brother and my dad by the way) need some love from Android Wear developers. Get on it, and make ¾ of my family happy!

Oops, I can’t do that now

Google Assistant on Android 2.0 is also really great – or so I’ve heard. You see, I wouldn’t know about that because Google Assistant hasn’t worked on my watch from day one. It launches, accepts my commands, it even goes to the trouble of writing them out on the screen. Then, it says “Oops! I can’t do that right now.” Every time for everything. It’s really irritating.

The only solution I have found online is to factory reset the phone to get it to work. I’m not a normal use case. I factory reset phones all the time as part of my job. But the normal everyday Joe who’s reading this probably doesn’t. For them, that advice sucks. I haven’t gotten around to it yet because I had to move on to a different device for review. But when I go back, I’m going to have to factory reset that thing. That shouldn’t ever be the answer. If Google wants its Assistant to succeed, that can’t be the answer.

(Editor’s note: After this writing, [...]

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from Pocketnow http://pocketnow.com/2017/06/01/android-wear-2-0-not-progress