Developer Preview 4 includes a number of new APIs that will help you build more powerful standalone apps. Get ready for the next version of Android Wear! Support stand-alone Wear devices and apps. Create enhanced user interaction and glanceable experiences. Test your apps on Wear devices.
A key part of Android Wear 2.0 is letting watch apps work as standalone apps, so users can respond to messages, track their fitness, and use their favorite apps, even when their phone isn't around. The developer preview includes everything you need to test your existing apps on a variety of hardware configurations. The fourth developer preview became available on 13th Dec 2016 and it comes with some big changes that suggest the wear team is putting the extra time to good use.
Reintroduction of Swipe-to-dismiss
The most significant change in this release is the return of "swipe-to-dismiss" – the navigation model where users swipe right across the screen to return to a previous screen or exit an app. This was the navigation model of Android Wear 1.0, but it was swapped out with the first 2.0 developer preview in favor of using the physical power button as a Back button. Many users given the feedback that the swipe-to-dismiss gesture from Android Wear 1.0 is an intuitive time-saver.
- Swiping an activity from left to right will result in it being dismissed and the app will navigate down the back stack.
- Developers can wrap the containing views of a Fragment or Views in general in the new SwipeDismissFrameLayout to implement custom actions such as going down the back stack when the user swipes rather than exiting the activity.
- Hardware button now maps to "power" instead of "back" which means it can no longer be intercepted by apps.
This change may actually re-open the door for watches that don't have hardware buttons. Whether people want that or not may be up for debate, but a mandatory hardware button for navigation had been a topic of some discussion after the first developer preview was released.
Compatibility with Android Wear 1.0 Apps
Also making a return from Android Wear 1.0 is support for apps packaged inside of apps. The third developer preview added a miniature version of the Play Store to handle apps for the watch, but in doing so, Google disabled support for the older method of packaging apks for Wear inside of apks for phones. This particular piece of information wasn't widely communicated, so there was a great deal of confusion about apps that didn't appear to be installing properly. Both types of installations should now work with DP4, but Google is still strongly encouraging developers to use the standalone model since it gives more choices to users and improves usability through the Play Store.
Seamless Authentication
Google's final major addition follows along with the theme of simplifying actions on a watch using a paired phone. To make authentication a seamless experience for both Android phone and iPhone users, Google has created new APIs for OAuth and added support for one-click Google Sign-in. Developers can now call an API on a watch that opens up a sign-in prompt on a paired phones. This will allow users to choose accounts and read details about permissions on a more appropriately sized screen.
In-App Billing
A new feature called In-app billing support added along with paid apps, this gives you another way to monetize android wear app or watch face. A developer can now add in-app purchases to Wear apps without relying on paired apps or workarounds. Authorization for purchases is still protected by a 4-digit PIN.
Source : Android Developers Blog
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