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Android Wear's new wrist gestures, explained with Drake GIFs

Android Wear's new wrist gestures, explained with Drake GIFs

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1/100th of the grace of Drake

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Let us take a moment, before we get into the technical details, to praise the internet for finally recognizing the genius of Drake's "Hotline Bling" video. Drake's supremely self-assured moves confused us at first, but then we figured it out with the help of Rembert Browne at (pour one out) Grantland. We understood, and were better for it.

Such understanding will be a long time coming in another context, the 1.4 update to Android Wear. It adds a new set of wrist gestures for controlling the actions on your watch alongside support for speakers, sending messages in WhatsApp, and some stuff that will only apply to the LG Watch Urbane. But those gestures, well, I hope you can both a) remember vague instructions and what they relate to and b) execute them with 1/100th of the grace of Drake. Witness:

To see more details or take an action: Hold your arm in front of you and quickly push down, and bring it back normally to the original position.

Huh. Drake, is this how it's done?

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Pushing down on a card will take you to that card's first action. Pushing down a second time will select that first action, which is the most common action. There is not a way to select or perform an action after the first action using solely gestures.

Uhhhh

To open the apps menu: When on the main watch face screen, hold your arm in front of you and quickly push down, and bring it back normally to the original position.

Help us Drake. Please.

To go back: Hold your arm in front of you and quickly pivot up, and bring it back normally to the original position.

That's confusing. Drake is not confused, though.

To pull down settings from the watch face: When on the main watch face screen, slowly turn wrist away from you then quickly flick back toward you.

Drake?

Okay, this all makes sense now. We look forward to more gestures from both Drake and Android Wear. Here's one that hasn't been claimed yet. Get on it, Google.

Maybe this one can shush that new speaker function that's coming. Seriously, Google, pay attention.