The Pebble 2 has passed through the FCC, but its arrival is set for September 2016. This means that interested wearers will have to wait for a few weeks until the Pebble 2 goes on sale. Pebble is planning to roll out Pebble 4.0 for existing users of existing Pebble smartwatches, though, meaning that even Pebble Time Round and Pebble Time Steel users can get their hands on the upcoming Pebble update.
Pebble 4.0 brings a few new interesting features that make it more important to grab than some previous, incremental updates -- though Pebble firmware update 3.14 last month brought some improvements to Pebble Health and Data Sync while adding some comparative metrics to make fitness competitive with your family and friends. Pebble firmware version 3.12 brought auto walk and auto run tracking, smart alarms, and iPhone text messaging quick replies for iPhone users.
First, Pebble 4.0 will let you now see a timeline quick view in full, without covering up the time or giving you only half of the timeline event on your watchface. AppGlances, a new feature Pebble will give to developers, will let them add another line of relevant information for users (such as the estimated time of arrival in the event that the Pebble user is hopping an Uber taxi ride, for example, or to view the weather in order to dress appropriately). Developers will also be able to give custom icons to their apps, though whether or not Pebble users will get to customize their app icons on the wrist is anyone's guess.
Of these good changes for Pebble 4.0, though, is what Pebble is calling One Click Actions. The name is self-explanatory, allowing users to designate an on-screen action to bring up a favorite or frequently-used app so that users need not scroll through their apps looking for the one they want.
Pebble has set a deadline for developers to get their apps updated and ready for the new release by August 31st. We presume that the Pebble 2 will roll out at the end of September, which gives Pebble a few good weeks to rollout Pebble 4.0 for current users before newcomers get to experience what life is like when you buy Pebble. With that said, Pebble users are about to get a nice upgrade to their smartwatch experience.
