My Favorite Free Android Widgets
03. Dec, 2009 
9 Comments
Eat Your Heart Out iPhone Users!!!! Widgets are the Reason Your Kind Will Never Rule the Earth.
LEFT:
This first image shows the power widget that I beleive to be a part of Android 2.0. It could also just be native to Cyanogen’s most recent mod… I’m really not sure which. It gives you quick access to the most popular toggles including wifi, bluetooth, GPS, sync, and screen brightness.
The second widget is the Scoreboard application widget. Scoreboard is an official Google app in which you can select your favorite teams and be notified during games. The widget just allows you to scroll through each team to see the last game and the next game.
The last widget on this screen is my Facebook widget from the Official Facebook for Android application. You can quickly update your status or scroll through items in your news feed. It seems to update very well and move rather quickly.
RIGHT:
This first widget is called the Android Agenda Widget. It can be displayed in medium or large (medium shown here). It does a better job (in my opinion) of displaying your upcoming appointments. You can also pull data from multiple calendars, not just the native Android Calendar app.
Also displayed here is the Fox News Widget. I love this quick access to news. It has a small refresh button in the top right of the widget but otherwise you can set the auto-refresh to a variety of time options. When you touch the widget on the screen it opens a scrollable list of recent news stories with Headlines and short excerpts. You can filter specific genre’s of news stories if you choose.
LEFT:
This is my Social Media Screen.
The center of the screen displays my visits today for my four favorite websites. This data is pulled from my Google Analytics account. You can choose to view visits or pageviews for that day.
This widget is called the “Analytics Widget.” It doesn’t update very frequently and sadly there is no way to manually update or refresh. Just the same I think its cool.
RIGHT:
This screen has three widgets on it. The first in the top left is the Weather Widget. This comes from the popular Weather Channel application. You can choose from two different sizes of widgets and this is the small one. I have tried a variety of other widgets but this one is my favorite. It seems to update the best based on device location and when you touch it, it opens the weather channel application.
In the top right corner is the SMS Unread Count Widget. It just displays the messaging icon along with the number of unread SMS messages that you have in your inbox. They recently updated the widget to allow you to choose which messaging icon (new or old) you prefer to display.
On the bottom of the screen is my music widget. This is from the stock music application that comes with the phone. I really like the player and I like the widget. Quick access to play/pause or skip forward. Touching the widget opens the music application.
Other Cool Widgets I Like:
- Flight Stats
- Pandora
- Twidroid
- Android Guys
- TasKiller
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Hi Jacob,
thanks for mentioning my Analytics Widget application! You said that you are missing a feature to manually refresh the widget. I got the same response from others as well so from now on you can press the widget itself to refresh the data!
Have a look at the Android Market or on my website to download the latest version or to get further information.
Cheers,
Jonas
Since writing this I have also discovered “CalWidget” which is now my favorite calendar widget. It gives you far more sizing options!
I love widgets but absolutely hate that I find myself short of real estate to put them on.
HTC and Google would do well to increase the number of screens per scene to 10 or more.
Further, I have to think that a more intelligent add widget can be made. I’d like for ‘add widget’ to filter the widgets you see to only those that will fit on your current screen, or at least clue you in as to what size you need free (1×1, 1×2, etc.). I hope Froyo improves widgets
First rule of UX is to help the user avoid wasted effort. Widgets isn’t quite there yet but it could be.
I love widgets but find myself not liking certain apps that should have widgets…do u think there is a way to get the developers or goggle to make sure that info is included in description, ie widget available…or the market have another tab for apps that do have widgets available.
I use most of the widgets you mentioned….
looking for more…keep us updated..
Check out this list of the Best Android Widgets!