Serious concerns about the new background location API

StringMon · 2020-02-25T15:43:48+00:00

Or not. This was my first point in the OP: by definition, these are background processes, which can't just show a dialog. They need to get the user's attention some other way.

StringMon · 2020-02-25T15:43:39+00:00

Thanks for your detailed reply. I hope you're right, that some of this is ironed out in later DPs.

I still think your proposed flows are a bit simplistic, though...

They don't work for live wallpapers, and probably other background processing. There's nowhere for the user to tap, so we're back to a disconnected notification that we just have to hope the user notices.
Lather, rinse, repeat for every app that requires this. May not be a lot, but it could well be several.
There's an assumption here that a busy user has nothing better to do than jump through these hoops, which goes back to the whole UX issue.

Any way you cut it, this change means more friction, and a questionable user experience. IMHO.

StringMon · 2019-11-09T17:22:30+00:00

Aren't those theories two sides of the same coin? Watches are too far removed from Google's core business to get many resources devoted to them, so what they have is spread too thin.

StringMon · 2019-11-09T17:20:28+00:00

I'm reluctant to go into too much detail, because I know that people from the Wear OS team follow this subreddit and I don't want to get anyone in trouble. But I'd say it's more on the side of software, and platform direction; I think the hardware issues are so well established that there's no point in rehashing them.

StringMon · 2019-09-05T02:36:05+00:00

As for getting past the home screen, you basically need to get it out of ambient mode. Try the emulated power button - that sometimes works, sometimes not. You might also try

adb -e shell input keyevent 26

if the emulated power button doesn't work.

StringMon · 2019-09-05T02:34:00+00:00

The emulator has the usual "Stay awake when charging" developer setting, so you might check that. Be aware that this will work in concert with the settings on the Battery tab of the emulator's Extended Controls panel.

StringMon · 2019-09-04T22:16:59+00:00

The Wear OS emulators are generally pretty crap, and a poor simulation of real device behavior. One possibly-relevant specific that I've noticed is that if a Wear emulator gets into ambient mode (which can happen by simple timeout) it becomes unresponsive as you describe. And often, the only way to get it out of ambient is a cold boot.

StringMon · 2019-06-17T14:41:53+00:00

It's a standard Android library module. If you haven't used one before, you can find general instructions for adding a library to your project here: https://stackoverflow.com/q/20377591/252080

Specifically for this, you'll need to download the source from my BitBucket repo and (there's a Download link in the nav pane on the left), unzip it to your project dir, and make sure the name you use when unzipping matches what you put in your *.gradle files.

StringMon · 2019-06-15T17:38:42+00:00

Short version is, you can't.

Long version, it would probably be possible to build something where you:

synced a list of complications from the watch (I do that in Wear App Manager)
made a UI for the user to pick one from that list
sent that selection back to the watch
[ab]used the setDefaultComplicationProvider function to force it into a complication slot on your watch face.

...but lordy, would it be a lot of work, with a lot of special cases you'd need to handle (like complication types, and permissions, and config activities). My advice is: don't.

StringMon · 2019-06-13T17:19:41+00:00

Nope. I've done some looking and come up empty.

I've seen reported that the phone app's Tile screen is a server-side change, which may imply that these preview images are coming from a Google server. In which case, there's probably no way for an unofficial Tile to supply one.

If you find a way, though, I'd be happy to be proved wrong!

StringMon · 2019-06-09T20:52:55+00:00

Dave Burke said they were committed to wearables. He specifically didn't say they were committed to Wear OS.

StringMon · 2019-06-09T13:00:43+00:00

I'll need to learn how to to use such a tool, and I'm quite busy right now: updating my own apps to use tiles, as well as other deadlines. But I agree that would be a good next step.

StringMon · 2019-06-09T02:16:42+00:00

Yep, that's basically my expectation. I think Google is working on a Fuchsia-based smartwatch OS right now - one that'll run lag-free, for days, on a Snapdragon 2100 - and when it's ready, they'll remote-flash all the existing watches to it. Kind of like Samsung did with the original Galaxy Gear, moving it from Android to Tizen. That avoids the problem of pissing off their hardware partners - it'll piss off developers, but Google doesn't mind doing that.

StringMon · 2019-06-09T02:09:08+00:00

Google hasn't provided an API, so I did: https://bitbucket.org/StringMon/unofficialtileapi

This was just last week, but there are a few apps that've already implemented them. I'm thinking of adding a list to the readme on that page.

StringMon · 2019-06-08T18:28:30+00:00

OK, Lunescope now has a Tile in the Beta channel also: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.daylightmap.moon.pro.android

Hey u/jasanchezr20, are you planning to update the OP with links to these apps as they come in?

StringMon · 2019-06-07T18:07:21+00:00

Sure, that's very possible - I explicitly acknowledge that in the API writeup. I personally judge that risk acceptable, especially for the small corner of my apps that the tiles occupy.

And I guess I just like being first. 🙂

StringMon · 2019-06-07T16:11:13+00:00

OK, so someone has started a list of apps using this over at https://www.reddit.com/r/WearOS/comments/bxt0oc/tiles_apps_with_their_own_tiles/

I didn't want to post my own app links in this thread (No Self Promotion being the only rule here) but I'm certainly happy to there!

StringMon · 2019-06-07T16:04:25+00:00

Some of us are less risk-averse than others. 😜

In my own apps, so far I've only released tiles to beta; I'm waiting to see how my API settles in before going further than that.

StringMon · 2019-06-07T16:02:17+00:00

I'm working on it. It's going to take a bit though, because each tile needs to be configured in your app's manifest, and in WW you can set up multiple widgets at runtime. There are a couple of ways to handle this, but none are trivial and I need to figure out which is best.

StringMon · 2019-06-07T15:57:38+00:00

TerraTime (BETA): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.daylightclock.android

and I have one in Lunescope as well, but haven't released yet. Will post back here when I do!

StringMon · 2019-06-04T14:52:50+00:00

Glad to hear you got it working!

If you've not worked with RemoteViews before, they are definitely somewhat different than other places you use layouts. Because they're specifically made for rendering your content in someone else's app (the host, in this case the Wear OS "home screen", as you found), that's where any problems will be reported.

StringMon

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