Google(s goog) is continuing the momentum it started at last week's Google I/O developer event. After rolling out Google Play Services 5.0 worldwide on Wednesday, the company followed up with the first batch of third-party apps for Android Wear smartwatches. The list of applications appears to be rolling out in a staged fashion as some Android owners are seeing different titles.
On my Moto X, for example, I see 24 Android Wear apps; clearly developers quickly added smartwatch functionality to their software in the past week. Google said that could be as easy as providing simple notification support or software could push advanced functions to the smartwatches. Among the titles I see so far are RunKeeper (already installed but it's too late for me to run!), IFTTT, Level Money, Banjo, Eat24, Glympse, Player FM Podcast and Radio, The Guardian, Thomson Reuters Eikon, Evernote Wear, Pintrest, American Airlines, and Fly Delta to name a few.
I tested the RunKeeper app (even though I was standing still) and I was able to see my time, distance and pace while also being able to pause or stop my "run." A microphone icon atop the RunKeeper app is used for standard Android Wear voice actions, so you can multitask when working out.
That's just an example, though: There a bunch of apps to test out and I'm sure their Android Wear functions all vary from simple notifications to full apps. I'll be testing them over the next few days in order to provide a more detailed review of Android Wear. I've shied away from that for the past week simply because I knew I'd only be reviewing half a product without the third-party apps.