It’s easy to think of
widgets as big 'ol 4x4 blocks that dominate your home screen. Such home screen
tools are great for your weekly calendar or catching news headlines, but often
the utility you gain isn’t worth the lost space.
There’s a better way to
bring more functionality to your home screen. Many savvy developers have
created little icon-sized widgets that serve as a shortcut to a particular task
in an app. This can dramatically speed up common tasks like calling or texting
a favorite contact, launching a Gmail label, finding a Starbucks, or checking
in at a location.
Here’s a collection of
eight such shortcuts that I use often and a short tutorial on how to get them
on your own device.
How to set it up
First, a quick primer on
putting these shortcuts on your homescreen. With Android Lollipop devices or
those running the Google Now Launcher, you touch and hold the
home screen and then select Widgets from the bottom of the page.
The shortcuts are usually
ordered by the name of their application, but not always. Swarm's button to
check in is called "Check in." By comparison a Gmail label is called,
you guessed it, “Gmail label.”
Just touch and hold to
drag it onto your homepage. You can then move it around like any other app. If
you’ve mastered this, it’s time to add some extra power to your home screen.
Text or call a contact
This is great for a
spouse, significant other, or anyone else you contact regularly. The shortcut
will take you into a text-message conversation or initiate a phone call. Look
for the shortcuts named Direct Dial or Direct Message in the widgets screen.
The language may vary slightly depending upon your phone’s interface, but it
should be a matter of common sense to figure out the right ones.
For texting, the button
will launch your default messaging app. Same with the dialer - either the stock
option or one of the many others in the Play Store.
Shazam that song
If you often use Shazam to figure out the song you’re hearing, then this is a must-have.
Just look for Shazam in the widget menu and throw the button wherever its most
convenient. Then next time you’ll only need to touch this widget to fire up the
listening function. Sometimes a few seconds can make the difference between
finding out the track or regretting that you didn’t act quickly enough.
Set a reminder for Inbox by Gmail
Google offers you a lot
of different ways to create a reminder across Android and Chrome. You can use a voice command, Chrome’s omnibox, Google Keep, or Inbox.
This particular shortcut
comes courtesy of the Gmail-alternative Inbox. It launches a new
reminder, so all you have to do is touch it and type out what you need to be
pestered about. If you’re all-in with Inbox then you might want to add another
available button, which launches the message compose tool.
Check in with Swarm
If you’re a fan of
Foursquare’s Swarm app, you’ll find the
service more enjoyable to use if can do a quick check-in without the need to
find your phone. To enable this, just add the “Check in” button from the widget
menu to your home screen. This will launch you right to that action, so you can
rack up another outing and fight your way to reclaim the restored title of
mayor.
Quickly visit a Gmail label
If you’re a Gmail power
user, then labels are likely a critical piece of your workflow. So if there’s a
label that you regularly revisit then put a widget that launches it from your
home screen. When you touch this button you’ll go right to all the messages
with this label.
Right now this is only
for Gmail, as opposed to the flashy new Inbox. If you use Google’s new email
app you’ll need to be willing to jump back and forth between the two if you
want to put this widget to use.
Launch Google Now
While the Google Now
launcher is great, it may not be your cup of tea. There are plenty of other good launchers out there, though the one
disadvantage they have is that they don’t offer that one-swipe access to Google
Now.
Instead of a widget, you
need to put the Google app on your home screen
(there’s always one outlier). If you’ve already set up Google Now, then it will launch right into your stream of cards. This
gives you the opportunity to use an alternate launcher while also keeping
Google’s digital service just one touch away.
Instantly find coffee with Starbucks buttons
Here’s a great one for
fellow Starbucks addicts: with one tap you’ll launch a Google Map that lists
Starbucks stores nearest to your location. The Starbucks app also tells you which of
the nearby coffee shops are currently open. The navigation drawer offers other
tools, like finding out your Starbucks account balance or filtering the store
listings by whether they have a drive-thru or other amenities.
Jump to a specific cloud storage folder or file
Cloud storage apps Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive each offer a widget for accessing a particular section of your
cloud storage. Both Google Drive and OneDrive allow you to pin a specific file
or folder on your home screen. This is useful if you organize your writing in a
specific folder or use a favorite file for note-taking.
With Dropbox you can put
a specific folder, though not a file, on your home screen. All of these widgets
are organized in the drawer by the name of the app.
These examples really
just scratch the surface. This is the type of customization Android offers, and
by putting it to use you’ll be faster and more productive with your phone so
you can get back to what matters: awesome games.
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