About Mobility

Android Widgets, which will be made available with the release of Android 1.5 (Cupcake) is a great addition to the platform; I’ve been waiting for such widget API for a while now.

Android Widgets is an example of Local widgets (as opposed to Web-based widgets). And because they are Local, you get the benefit of the (Android) platform to its fullest.

Android define their widgets or AppWidgets as miniature application views that can be embedded in other applications (e.g., the Home). These views are called "widgets" and you can publish one with an "AppWidget provider." An application component that is able to hold other widgets is called an "AppWidget host."

Below is a glimpse at Android Widgets (thanks to PhoneDog):

When Android widgets are used with the AppWidget framework, see Introducing home screen widgets and the AppWidget framework, developers can write “widgets” that can be dropped onto the home screen. (And with “home widgets” we are getting closer to something that I wrote some time ago – see the bit old but still very relevant piece titled The Next Battlefront for Mobile Applications.)

For those interested in developing widgets for Android, there are a couple of good developer guides available at developer.android.com:

• Widget Design Guidelines
• AppWidgets

Plus see my Mobile Widgets Page which provides some background, definition, examples and related information about mobile widgets.

ceo

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 9th, 2009 at 9:56 am and is filed under Android. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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