There’s no simple technique to discover Android apps with nice widget help. That’s lastly altering, as Google has introduced new Play Retailer pages and search filters to enhance discovery of apps with widgets.
Google is rolling out a brand new search filter on the Play Retailer particularly for locating widgets. When looking for an app, it is possible for you to to faucet the ‘Widgets’ button to slender your outcomes to apps with widgets included. It’s not clear if this works routinely with apps that embrace widgets, or if app builders might want to specify that their apps comprise widgets.
Additionally, if an utility helps widgets, the Play Retailer will add a badge to the app’s particulars web page. Google mentioned in its weblog publish for app builders, “This eliminates guesswork for customers and highlights your widget choices, encouraging them to discover and make the most of this functionality.”
Lastly, the Google Play Retailer is rolling out a brand new web page to focus on apps with widgets, organized into totally different classes like productiveness and leisure. The corporate mentioned, “This curated house showcases collections of wonderful widgets and promotes the apps that leverage them. This gives an extra channel for […] widgets to achieve visibility and attain a wider viewers.”
Notably, these enhancements are rolling out to the Google Play Retailer on Android telephones, tablets, and foldables. Chromebooks appear to be neglected, since they will’t use widgets from put in Android purposes—not less than, not but. The desktop Play Retailer web site additionally isn’t getting these enhancements, which is actually annoying for anybody searching for telephone apps from their desktop or laptop computer.
Based on Google, some Android app builders have been annoyed with constructing widgets for Android apps, just for the widgets to not be observed by most individuals utilizing the apps. There are additionally some new resources for app builders to construct useful and discoverable widgets, and these adjustments are supposed to spice up utilization of these widgets.
Android has supported residence display widgets for its complete historical past, relationship again to the primary public model of Android in 2008. It was one of many predominant variations between Android and iPhone for years, till Apple finally added proper home screen widget support with the discharge of iOS 14 in 2020. Extra lock screen widget options had been added within the iOS 16 replace, which arrived in 2022.
This looks as if a win-win state of affairs for everybody: app builders get extra folks utilizing the widgets they hung out creating and sustaining, and the individuals who prioritize widget help can extra simply discover apps with that choice. Looking for apps particularly based mostly on widget help may not all the time make sense, however it may be helpful in some conditions, particularly with productiveness apps. In the event you’re searching for a brand new notes app to attempt, and also you need the notes to be all the time seen on your private home display, filtering your search to apps with widgets can save a while.
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Google mentioned in a weblog publish for builders, “These small however mighty UI components can have a big influence in your app’s success. A widget is mainly a UI that lives exterior your predominant app. Widgets act like a window into your app content material and a shortcut to your core options, which customers can conveniently interact with proper from their residence display, lock display, and even via digital assistants.”
The brand new pages, search filters, and widget badges are rolling out now, so if you happen to don’t see them in your Play Retailer, you might need to attend a bit longer.
Supply: Android Builders Weblog (1, 2), TechCrunch