Using an unsupported API in Android Wear

Issue

I'm really keen to develop a web browser application for Android Wear devices. To make such application I need a WebView object, but the major problem is that Google has made the android.webkit API unavailable in that OS.

Since Android is open-source, is it technically possible to manually include the needed libraries, by coping them from the android source code on GitHub into my project? Are they going to work like as in a normal Android device, and is it legal?

Here is the link to the API I'd like to use.

Solution

Developing a browser based on WebView is not a good idea anyway. Although historically Android Browser was based on WebView, it had to use a lot of hidden APIs in order to work. All more or less functional browser apps based on WebView have to do the same, which makes them fragile. Also, the resulting browser app will not be as secure as a real multi-process web browser.

A better idea is to take Chromium and build it using Wear SDK. And there is already one built this way.

Answered By - Mikhail Naganov