Smartphone wars are very interesting and especially in the case of the two biggest mobile operating systems, Android and iOS. Android user however, have more to be proud of than iPhone users, mainly because their operating system allows for use of widgets. The importance of widgets is attributed to the privilege of better overview of information that applications collect.
This means that the information is made available quicker and more conveniently because you do not have to open the specific app. If you want to enjoy the convenience of android widgets on an android Smartphone, you should consider the following examples that will definitely make iPhone user jealous:
1. Extended Controls: This is a very handy widget that lets you bypass many click (or touches rather) to get to the settings to toggle some cellular radios like Bluetooth and screen autorotation. The app therefore gives you quick access controls on the home screen that can be reached by as little as just one touch.
2. Beautiful Widgets: This is one app that can really make anyone shift from the iPhone to android phones. It offers the opportunity to customize the home screen with a set of widgets for various purposes like weather and time. More to the convenience of these apps, there are different sizes of widgets hence better organization of widgets on limited screen space.
3. Google Reader: This is an essential app for those who love their news, as it displays feed from different news sites that you subscribe to. The ticker widget app makes it possible for news items to be loaded directly to your home screen and hence save you several clicks to the main app.
4. Pulse: No one can argue that this is the best technology newsreader, with its sliding tiles for scrolling news articles. The widget more so offers visual thumbnails of the news and therefore more intuitive to use.
5. Google Finance: For business people and especially stock brokers and fans, this widget is the best for stock monitoring. The widget allows for quick peek at trade performance for the chosen index or even multiples.
6. Twitter and Facebook: The respective widgets for these apps make it possible for social addicts to get feeds from friends delivered directly to their home screen. You can also quickly access the app through the widget to post a comment or share an interesting story.
These are just a small number of the available widgets that android users can choose from. It is important to understand that these widgets have their own demands on the phone’s processor because they run like full-fledged apps. They can therefore consume a substantial amount of bandwidth increasing your data carrier’s charge.
They are also heavy consumption of battery power and can drain the phone quickly. They also take more screen space than icons, in order to effectively use them; you may need to install some more launcher for additional screen space. All these privileges show the elegance and beauty of Android over Apple’s Os but this is not to say that the latter does not have some cooler features.
Ella is writer and blogger, loves to explore and write about various technology and internet trends. Since she got her Motorola phone she is interested in everything related to Android apps and features.
