Next for Android Wear: customized watch faces, GPS and offline music playback

Moto 360
Options! Well, more of them

As promised Google is supporting its burgeoning Android Wear smartwatch platform with its first update rolling out in the coming months.

The everything giant announced the first update will bring offline GPS support and offline music playback to wearables running its smartwatch OS.

Smartwatches with built-in GPS sensors such as Sony's SmartWatch 3 will track your distance and speed when you go on a run. There's no official word whether GPS support includes turn-by-turn direction or whether a map that tracks your position will be displayed, but it seems like one of the obvious uses for a wrist-worn device.

The first update will also bring offline music playback, letting users wireless stream songs stored on their smartwatch to a pair of Bluetooth headphones.

Google imagines both these new features will be useful for those who want to leave their smartphone during a run or bike ride. After all, no one likes having a mobile device jumping around their pocket during a workout.

Once users come back home the watch will re-sync, transferring all the updated stats to your handset.

What face is it?

The second update Google has lined up will bring downloadable watch faces. These new designs won't just include different analog and digital clock face; users will also be able to customize their watch's home screen with widgets like their calendar and fitness data.

Soon enough users will also be able to download new developer-created watch faces from the Google Play store.

Lastly Google promises it's working with manufacturers to create even more watch options on top of what it helped introduce at IFA 2014. Supposedly these new wearables will feature different shapes, styles and sensors.

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Kevin Lee

Kevin Lee was a former computing reporter at TechRadar. Kevin is now the SEO Updates Editor at IGN based in New York. He handles all of the best of tech buying guides while also dipping his hand in the entertainment and games evergreen content. Kevin has over eight years of experience in the tech and games publications with previous bylines at Polygon, PC World, and more. Outside of work, Kevin is major movie buff of cult and bad films. He also regularly plays flight & space sim and racing games. IRL he's a fan of archery, axe throwing, and board games.

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