widgets | Mobiles365

Life on Android without the app drawer and widgets

Posted on May 27, 2016 by Ryan St. Andrie

During a recent conversation with my friend (and soon to be fellow contributor to the Pocket Now family) Clifton Thomas, we debated the need for widgets and the app drawer within Android. Clifton has recently purchased the Nextbit Robin and despite rockin’ a close to bone stock version of Android it lacks an app drawer and widgets are handled via a separate layer that’s accessed via a pinch on one of the home-screens. Therefore, the Robin’s approach to Android is rather iOS-like in execution in that you are ...

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Top 5 widgets for your iPhone and iPad (Video)

Posted on October 20, 2014 by Taylor Martin

We’ve talked about iOS 8 and all the new and useful features plenty of times now, but we haven’t had the chance to focus on those individual features and, more importantly, the third-party support for said features.One of our favorites, which actually surprised us, was the introduction of widgets in the Today section of Notification Center. These widgets display different types of at-a-glance information, provide shortcuts to different features or settings, and even help your remember things.There are ...

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WP8 Live Tiles becoming more like Android widgets every day

Posted on October 22, 2013 by Joe Levi

Is that a widget, or a Live Tile on your screen? Back in the early days of Windows Phone, Microsoft’s homescreen was basically just a grid of “flat” icons, but unlike Apple’s grid of “dimensional” icons, Microsoft’s could be updated to give you real-time information. If you had email, the Live Tile would tell you how many were waiting to be read. Apple’s email icon did too, but Microsoft carried that concept across every app. The tile for the clock app would tell you the time. The tile for the weather app would show you the weather. But it ...

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Android 4.4 KitKat widgets: a step back to Gingerbread?

Posted on October 18, 2013 by Joe Levi

Widgets are small, interactive components that sit on your homescreens to present information to you, the user, without having to load the full application. Some people love them, others hate them. Regardless of which side you’re on, widgets are something that’s fairly unique to Android. Sure, iOS now has icons that get updated to show accurate information (basic stuff like time and weather), and Microsoft has Live Tiles that are sort of a hybrid icon/widget with fairly limited capabilities. But as far as full-blown widgets are concerned, Android stands out from the others.

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The best DashClock Widget extensions (Video)

Posted on August 27, 2013 by Taylor Martin

DashClock is easily one of the most popular Android widgets for your home screen. On the surface, it’s just your run-of-the-mill clock widget that can be used for a lock or home screen widget, or as a Daydream mode. But once you dig into the settings, it’s clear there’s a lot more to DashClock than that. With the aid of developer APIs, DashClock is open to third-party extensions that spread far and wide. In

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Pocketnow Insider: What’s on Taylor Martin’s smartphone?

Posted on May 30, 2013 by admin

Pocketnow Insider is a relatively new series of posts and videos that give you guys and gals, our loyal readers, a peek into our lives, what makes the wheels keep turning at Pocketnow, and what goes on behind the scenes. Since I started here at Pocketnow in February (oh, how the time has flown by!), readers, new Twitter followers, YouTubers, and Google+ followers have continually asked for me to do a bit about what’s on my ...

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The Pocketnow Weekly Podcast, Episode 034

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Michael Fisher

Ever recorded a 90-minute podcast full of Skype-related artifacts and drop-outs, only to find once you wrap it up that you used the wrong mic? If so, you know the pain we’ve experienced cutting together today’s episode of the Pocketnow Weekly podcast. Sorry for the levels on this one, folks; it’s unfortunate, and we’ve done all we can to normalize them, but you’re probably going to be twisting your volume knob an awful lot over the course of this here episode. On the bright side, if you manage to endure, you’ll be treated to some excellent discussion on ...