After years of stagnation, Android 12 brought renewed attention to widgets on the OS. Google introduced several new tools for developers and revamped its first-party offerings. With all these changes, are you making more use of widgets?
Given the scenario, iOS 14 completely redesigned widgets a year ago and this has led to an early call from Google to do so, especially since Android first introduced the concept in the early days of the modern operating system. Was. For its part, several of Google’s iOS apps introduced widgets over the past year: YouTube Music, Google Photos, Fit, Calendar, Voice, Maps, Gmail, Search, Translate and Drive.
With Android 12, Google set out to “improve the user and developer experience across platforms and launchers”. At a high-level, all widgets received rounded corners on the newer OS version, while dynamic colors are a common feature. Google also made it easier for users to edit/configure them, redesigned the widget picker with dynamic previews and details, and introduced smooth launch/close transitions.
Redesigned Google Widgets
Like all major Google apps were redesigned with Material U, many first-party widgets were also redesigned to fit the new design language:
A handful of first-party apps/experiences received new widgets, but they weren’t really in the content you redesigned. Chrome received a new “Shortcuts” bar and one that provides quick access to offline “Chromium Dino” games. There’s also a system conversation widget and of course Google Photos.
widget in action
The visual stability offered by Material U and Android 12 certainly does a lot to modernize widgets and make them a cohesive experience. Some were actually quite old and hadn’t been touched for years. That said, there are a few complaints with ContentAap making everything bigger and affecting information density in general.
Another factor is the adoption of widgets by third parties and whether developers have heeded Google’s calls for modernization. In that regard, there hasn’t really been a huge widget push by other apps over the past few months that appears to be exclusive to Android 12. Some devs want more built-in widget functionality. Google itself hasn’t updated everything. Some of those struggling include Google Fit, News, Tasks, and Voice.
Of course, the real sign of a successful (or unsuccessful) push is if you’re using more Android widgets:
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