Pebble owners can rejoice today, as the company released Pebble 2.0 update for Android on Friday. The new update will give users access to the new Pebble app store. Users of the Pebble smart watch from last year and the new Pebble Steel can get in on the action, which is splendid news all around.
"We're excited to announce that the Pebble Android app featuring the Pebble app store is now available for download from the Google Play store. It's taken a bit longer than expected, but we wanted our Android users to enjoy the same seamless and delightful experience we recently provided to Pebblers on iOS," says the Pebble team on its blog.
Pebble managed to update its Android app with an all new user interface, a list of previous notifications, and a watchapp locker. Furthermore, users now have the ability to change the face of their Pebble Smart Watch with this new update.
At the moment, Pebble's Android app store is home to a number of apps that include the likes of eBay, Foursquare, ESPN, and GoPro. Many more apps are a part of the collection, even a few apps related to fitness, which could be very important in the success of any smart watch going forward.
Pebble has chosen to dissect the app store into several parts to make it easier for users to find their favorite apps. These categories include fitness info, tools & utilities, notifications, remote and games, and productivity.
The whole experience is similar to a smartphone app store, but with that smart watch design.
The following is the Pebble 2.0 release notes that might interest some readers.
Pebble for Android 2.0 Release Notes
Completely revamped and improved user interface design.
Pebble watchapp directory: browse, find, and install the latest watchapps for Pebble.
Watchapp locker: keep track of your favorite apps and manage the apps on your Pebble.
The list of prior notifications is now stored on your Pebble.
Using Pebble watchapps that connect to the internet to fetch data such as location or weather requires the Pebble Android app to be running on your phone.
This release supports a single Pebble watch. We are aware that some users may have multiple Pebble smart watches, and will add support in a future release.
Users of the Beta release of the Android 2.0 application will only see the old app in the Google Play Store. Delete the Beta version of the app to see the public version properly.
Side-loading apps from the "Downloads" app or Gmail may fail. This is a known issue-users must currently use another method (e.g. Dropbox, downloading with an alternate browser, copying manually to a SD card, loading from the File Manager, etc.)
Users may have to manually re-launch the Pebble app and reconnect to a Pebble that has been disconnected from the paired device for a long period of time.
If a user is experiencing difficulty connecting their Pebble and phone: We suggest the user first try using (device) Home button then launching the Pebble app again via the Android launcher, then attempting to connect again. If that does not work, we suggest the user navigate to the Bluetooth settings menu, un-pair on both the android and pebble devices, and turn Bluetooth on Android off then on.
