Microsoft has announced some new features and functionality for both the Microsoft Band and Microsoft Health. The Microsoft Band will now be able to receive glanceable information from nearly any source, thanks to the addition of web tiles.
With this, developers will be able to leverage internet connectivity to deliver even more content right to the band, and the tiles are supported by all platforms where Microsoft Health is available. Developers will only need to "author" a web tile once, and it will support Windows, iOS, and Android.
In addition, Microsoft is introducing a preview of its Health Cloud API. This is the company's first step towards making Microsoft Health easier to work with. Developers will be able to enhance the experience of their apps with more fitness data from Health, and to start developers will be able to work with read-only APIs.
As part of the preview, the first set of APIs that we are providing are read-only APIs for Activities and Summaries designed to provide developers read operations for Microsoft Health activity data, as well as interval based summaries for biometric data. When a user finishes a run, an application can query the Activities API and access details of the run as well as map points for the entire run that can then be used to create a map.
Microsoft is also making some enhancements to the Band SDK. The following areas are currently being addressed:
- Refreshing of 3rd-party tile contents in-place
- Better support for building icons as buttons
- Ability to control the tile screen timeout
With the new functionality, developers should be able to further tap the potential of the Microsoft Band and Microsoft Health.
Source: Lumia Conversations{.nofollow}
