Google Now widget leaks online - coming to Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie?

The Google Now app is going to be updated with a new widget, allowing you to get useful information updates pushed straight to your Android homescreen

The Google Now app will be appearing in widget form in the not-too-distant future, according to details accidentally let slip by Google.

A screenshot of the Google Now widget emerged on one of Google’s Android support pages. The page has, of course, since been pulled, meaning we weren’t meant to see it yet. Take a look:



Not exactly earth-shattering we know, but, it’s minimalist and functional just like the full-blown app itself – it’s there to get useful information to you as quickly as possible.

It’s a sensible step for Google. Google Now was introduced in Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and is an excellent feature of current Android builds as it really enhances the search experience, voice control functionality, mapping and location services and many more of the most commonly used smartphone functions wrapped in one neat package.

We’re not aware of many other applications which monitor your commute and then tell you what the traffic and weather is going to be like ahead of time. The voice functions are better than Apple’s Siri too.

Creating a widget will push this functionality to the front of Android phones and allow users much quicker and easier access to some of the most useful stuff on the platform.

As you can see, the widget shown in the leak features three of Google Now’s distinctive ‘card’ panels: one showing location and weather, one showing information about your commute and another which appears to be a stock data panel.

Presumably, these panels are either customisable or will rotate with different information periodically. It’s also possible it will come in different size variants allowing more or fewer panels depending on scale.

We don’t have a lot more to go on at the moment, Android Central grabbed a screenshot before Google pulled the page and there are no reports of any written details.

It’s not clear whether the widget will come as a patched update via Google Play or if it will be part of Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie (KLP), expected for release on May 15 at Google I/O.

We’ll bring you more as we hear it.



by via Know Your Mobile