Pebble Update: Multi-Language, Full Android Notifications
The past few months have seen a flurry of new entries into the smartwatch market, with fancy shapes, faces, and colored screens. But one of the pioneers in that space, Pebble, still manages to hold its ground despite its geekier design and monochrome, but energy-efficient, display. Fans of the wearable device are now being rewarded for sticking with it through thick and thin. The latest update brings a major new feature to all users and one crucial feature on Android that will surely delight all users.
Firmware 2.8 for Pebble only has one major feature, but it's a very important one. Those who communicate a lot with people around the world might have already given up hope and gotten used to seeing boxes instead of letters in notifications from their non-English friends. Well, hope now springs eternal. Pebble has just added support for character sets beyond the English language, particularly accented ones like ẞ or Ź. The list of new supported languages is quite long, but sadly it does not include scripts in Chinese, Korean, or Japanese languages.
In the past, Pebble has been criticized by its Android fans for having delays in updates and new features compared to their iOS counterparts. If you're part of this camp, be jealous no more. Pebble has embarked on an epic journey to rewrite the Android app from scratch in order to build better foundations on which new features will be quickly added. And the first fruits of that labor is now here. Pebble on Android has just gained full notification support, meaning that any Android app and not just a selected few will be able to pass notifications to Pebble. Fret not, as you won't be flooded by all notifications, as you can set which apps to allow, with all apps blocked out initially by default. This new feature only works with Android 4.3 and later devices, but Pebble is working on getting that requirement down at least to Android 4.0.
And that is just the beginning, as the new Android app is also promised to be faster, more stable, and easier to use. Pebble has hinted that there will more notification-related features coming soon, so don't be so quick to sell off or bury your Pebble yet just because it might not look as fancy as the new kids in town.
SOURCE: Pebble