As part of the sweeping design changes coming to Android 12, Google revealed a new Widgets platform to help modernize how the tools look.
On top of changing their aesthetic, Google has also made widgets better to interact with so developers can add things like checkboxes and radio buttons. Users can also now interact with widgets without entering their corresponding app.
Google expects developers to add new widgets to Android with rounded corners and padding so they look more cohesive across the OS. While most developers probably won’t implement this design change, I hope they do given I really like the look of the widgets Google has shown off so far during I/O.
Most importantly, Google is trying to convince people to add dynamic colours to their widgets. This means that the widgets can adopt accent colours based on the other colours that are being used in Android.
Two of the cooler widget features the tech giant shared in a blog post are the possibility for widgets in Android auto and within Google Assistant.
These Google Assistant-based widgets can integrate with the virtual assistant, so that if you ask it something like “Hey Google, what are my Strava stats,” you’d be able to view a visual representation of your stats as a widget instead of just getting a vocal response.
This is really smart implementation of widgets and I hope Google Assistant gets increasingly more visual in the future. Google also brought a new widget picker to Android 12.
Hopefully, all this added emphasis on the widgets will spur more developers to adopt Google new ‘Material You’ design principles.
Source: Google, XDA Developers, Android developers
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