Android is the operating system that powers millions of smartphones around the world (here is the collection of the best Android models of the month). The little green robot now has a certain maturity, after years of updates and new versions of the system.
We currently know Android 14 as the most recent version of the green robot, with Android 15 which will instead be launched in beta starting next May. But even though there are a few months left, we are already able to glimpse some of the new features which will arrive with Android 15.
The novelty we are about to talk about concerns an aspect that we can define iconic if we talk about Android, that is, widgets. These graphic elements are present on Android since the first. After years of development and use, they have been relatively cast aside in terms of software developments. Paradoxically, apple‘s adoption of widgets on iOS also coincided with the new blood for renewing widgets also on Android.
With Android 15, a functionality linked to widgets could return not seen since Android 4.2 Jelly Beanthe Android version launched well 12 years ago. We’re talking about widget on the lock screen. Clearly we don’t expect an implementation like the one in 2012, also because it was set aside with the next version of Android the following year.
The screenshots below show how widgets could be added to the Android 15 lock screen. It seems like everything goes through one “common space” (with this name it is mentioned in the code) which could be created to the right of the lock screen by those who want to add widgets.
The good Mishaal Rahman managed to enable the feature and add a few widgets. From the images we see how the common space for widgets is still under development, as widgets have been added they overlap to the time display on the lock screen. But we can still see the widgets Google Clock And Finance operational.
According to what Rahman found, the novelty could be reserved only ad some types of widgets, and not to all those that are available within the launcher. Furthermore, there is a strong possibility that widgets on the lock screen on Android 15 will be reserved for devices with large screens, like tablets. This actually would make sense, as they perhaps wouldn’t be used much on a smartphone screen.
The one just described it’s not the only way to see widgets on the lock screen with Android 15. The other possibility is that Google develops its further At a Glance, which we famously find on Pixels, to allow you to add widgets via At a Glance. We’ll see what Google’s final decision will be.
