One thing that Windows Phone seems never to be good at is accessory to go with their product. I mean, look at where we are now, there are fewer (if not one) toys and accessories for Windows Phone than Android and iOS. The situation was getting better when FitBit announced their apps for Windows Phone, but with Update (or GDR) 1, the relationship between smartwatches and Windows Phone are about to get a whole lot better.
A Windows Phone developer, Jeremy Sinclair, has gone through the API that is included in Update 1, and what he found in there is quite interesting: many of this API are provided in this list are API that allows accessory to manage background notification and telephone task for “connected devices”-WP Central. What these APIs can do is quite amazing (at least for Windows Phone). The APIs will allow developers to write apps that allow a third-party accessory to manage phone call, set alarms and reminders, and manage your notifications, a few examples were listed by WP Central, includes:
- Apps can check the status of Quiet Hours and Driving Mode
- Support for video phone calls
- GetApps() will return a list of apps installed
To be clear, the APIs has not yet been specified to the SDK that would go public for developers. These APIs are for OEMs, i.e., HTC, Samsung, Nokia, LG, etc., and hardware manufacture e.g. If companies like Pebble, Samsung, Martian, etc., can use the tools they now have to do so. With these APIs, we now see a new section, in the Accessory part of Setting, states that users can “Turn notifications on or off for any accessory companion apps. Turning on notifications allows an app to receive your notification data, such as text messages and Caller IDs.”
@danielgary My understanding new APIs are limited to APIs aimed at enabling wearable companion apps
— Cliff Simpkins (@cliffsimpkins) August 4, 2014
Will these APIs be available for the public? As of right now, we do not know, but one thing we know for sure is that Windows Phone will be catching up to competitors in the wearable race.
Source: Pastebin
Via: WP Central
Fonetime.net 