Widgets quickly give you important information, allow you to easily control applications and usually make your Android home screen a much better place. Unfortunately, the reality of Android widgets does not always respect this promise.
Many large Android applications have widgets, but they are certainly not all created equal. In fact, a surprising number of really popular and otherwise excellent Android applications have widgets that seem to be a full reflection. In these cases, you would better use applications and find better widgets elsewhere.
Tread
The Trello widget seems to have been created with the strict minimum absolute in mind. One of the biggest design defects is that he tries to show you everything, instead of prioritizing what is useful or recent. This often means that you will see cards ago for weeks instead of the most recent that you really should see. It’s super restrictive even if you know how to use it. By default, it displays only cards that are specifically assigned to you.
It is horrible for anyone who works alone on a board or that simply wants to see an entire list. You end up having to use frustrating bypass solutions, like attacking each card just to make them appear in the widget, and this eats in your limited automation quota. The application is great and you will want to stick to this instead of the widget.
Google calendar
The Google calendar widget is ugly and feels completely overwhelmed. I would recommend using another widget that synchronizes with Google if you need it. A large part of the problem is that you get a very limited number of widgets to choose. Some are useless, and others take a lot from your screen, which would not matter if they made good use of the screen space, but this is not the case.
When Google introduced the new material you design, it has added an additional spacing and padding, which killed the information density. You are stuck with the agenda or the view of the month, and your tasks can easily bury your other calendar events, because all the tasks share the same style and the same color. Worse still, all the tasks that are not events all day disappear from the widget shortly after their notification disappears.
Google photos
The Google Photos widget is bad, mainly because it is technically unstable, lack of key features and does not do a great job to show you the photos you really want to see. It also does a bad integration work with the main photo application. If you see an image you like on the widget, you can’t just press the start. Instead, you need to close the widget, open the main photo application, then manually search for this same photo to do anything with it.
Even if you do not like to modify images, it blocks all the time, and after a while, the widget stops loading the photos. The widget is constantly through a very small repeated selection from only 20 to 25 photos of your memories, which is frustrating. You better use another widget for your images on your start menu.
Google Drive
Google Drive’s widget is very limited because you don’t have much control. Although you can see your files, you can’t do much else. All hidden features are stuck in the web version. This lack of control actually makes pain to use for daily tasks, which is the interest of a widget.
This is still getting worse when trying to resize it. If you reduce it on a 3×2 or 2×2 grid, it turns into a circle, and there is this strange and visible box between the search bar and recent files that look like an error. I use the application all the time now, because I completely abandoned the widget.
Whatsapp
By taking a photo of the WhatsApp widget, I remembered why it was bad. He only showed me new non -read messages, which come from WhatsApp on updates. If you want to read your current messages, you’d better not have supported them. You better use the computer and web versions if you do not want to use the application.
The usefulness is also really limited with regard to the media. The interest of the widget is to quickly see your messages without opening the application and marking everything as “reading”. However, if someone sends you a photo or video, the widget will not show you the real media. Everything you get is a small indicator that there are media there. Once you open the application by pressing it, each message is marked as reading, which goes completely at the end of the use of the widget in the first place.
Snapchat
The snapchat widget is slow and clumsy to use. The idea behind the widget is great; It is supposed to give you a quick way to start a conversation, watch the story of a friend or even send sequences without having to open the main application. However, even if you modify certain confidentiality parameters or update the application, the widget always suffers from the same slow and clumsy problems
In addition to that, the Android widget only shows friends who have a bitmoji, who is silly. Overall, the underlying instability and the lack of varnish in the widget mean that it is far from being reliable enough for regular use, which is really a shame because there is so much potential.
Gmail
The Gmail widget could be so better. It shows you each message of a folder on a small screen. If you want to see something a few days ago, you scroll so much. I have the impression that there could have been a better way to do it. I do not like the change that came with the Google equipment that you think back. It’s ugly now and can take up too much space.
The information density has dropped a lot of time, with more padding and rounded edges. When you could see four emails at a time, you can only see only two in the new design. It seems that the widget was a reflection afterwards.
Pokémon Go
I love the Pokémon Go application, but the widget is quite horrible. The biggest problem is that the widget does not update alone. Instead of giving you a quick and glable preview of your progress, like a widget should, you must open the Pokémon Go game so that the data can update. He completely beats the goal.
In addition to that, Pokémon Go is a battery killer. The game is based heavily on the GPS and needs you to have location services to “always allow” to follow your movements, even when the application is closed. This is how features such as adventure synchronization work to hatch the eggs and win boy’s candy in the background. The location services, alone, are a huge drain on your battery, but it is an easy way to go from zero to zero in a few hours.
Pandora
I used the pandora widget for training because you can train the application to improve your stations, but the problem is that it does not always work. The widget itself is supposed to be simple, showing you the information of the song and giving you functional controls such as loving, love, playing, taking a break and jumping. At the beginning, he does it, but a few songs, you will see him tear. He will not jump a song you told her, she will not stop, or worse, she manages.
In some of the most frustrating cases, you fully lose control of music, even with Bluetooth commands, and the only way to stop it is to force the application. He told me that a song was playing it was not the case, and will immediately start to play when it is disconnected from Bluetooth, which is embarrassing.
Microsoft Outlook
I always use Microsoft’s messaging application, and it’s honestly great. However, the widget is something that I will put on my phone from time to time just to be disappointed. If you leave it on your screen for about a week, it will often stop drawing new emails. If you try to open the application, it will sometimes plant. This widget could have been replacing the Lite application, but instead, it is simply not useful.
It is not only a minor discomfort; Synchronization problems are so bad that the widget is fundamentally useless to stay up to date. You can temporarily repair it by deleting and rehabilitating it, but it will likely be to be an unnecessary loading screen in a few days.
This does not mean that all widgets are bad. If you like an application, test your widget; You can see that some are better than using the application itself. There are fantastic widgets that are often overlooked, but these bads always appear from time to time.
There are many reasons why a widget simply does not work well, but it is not a dealbreaker. Widgets are not essential; They are often more practical. These applications are always generally easy to use, so stay away from their widgets until a large update repairs them.
