Notification syncing on Glass will sound instantly familiar to those who use Android Wear smartwatches. Notifications are forwarded from a paired smartphone to the Glass display, and are surprisingly unobtrusive, appearing as faded icons and text in the corner of the wearer’s vision. They’re dismissible, and also actionable – a Google+ post can be replied to from Glass, for example.
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To enable syncing, the feature must be activated in the MyGlass app and granted access to the phone’s notifications. There is a caveat, though; doing so will disable notification forwarding to any attached Android Wear device. Presumably to prevent information overload, this could become a problem for people who wear a smartwatch throughout the day and Glass only occasionally.
Notification syncing is neat, but cooler features lurk beneath the MyGlass app’s source code. Android Police found references to a wallpaper selector, which will eventually allow Glass owners to select the lockscreen background from a gallery of images or a custom photo.
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Additionally, framework for keyboard input was also discovered. Perhaps in recognition of Glass’s voice control limitations, Google may plan to add a soft keyboard to the MyGlass app for situations when voice input either isn’t appropriate, or fails. The keyboard should be usable from the lockscreen, which should make password entry a lot simpler.
Glass owners can download the updated app and firmware now.
