Widgets have been a big factor in Android’s reputation as a more customizable system than iOS, but Apple’s operating system recently surpassed Google’s in this regard. Android has supported home screen widgets since its first public release, 1.5 Cupcake, in 2009. iOS 14 added equivalent functionality in 2020 when widgets were released and appeared on the home screen for the first time. But two years later, Apple developed this system and introduced widgets on the lock screen in iOS 16. Meanwhile, Google rested on its laurels, removing the functionality of widgets on the lock screen in Android 5.0 Lollipop in 2015. Nearly a decade later, it looks like the feature is almost ready to make a comeback.
In his report for Android Authority, Mishaal Rahman identified two features that are in the works and could bring back the lock screen widget feature in Android 15. The first, the so-called “shared” space, appears to function as a widget drawer that can be opened by sliding inward from the right edge of the lock screen. Rahman was able to activate this feature in the latest Android 14 QPR2 Beta 3 build but with some limitations.
First, the interface is still far from perfect. After activating the feature, Rahman saw an uncomfortable grey bar on the right side of the screen. This panel could be expanded by swiping in, revealing a pencil icon that allowed you to add widgets. But here he noticed a second limitation: the lock screen panel only accepted widgets for which the WIDGET_CATEGORY_KEYGUARD constant was declared. This is an old system implemented in Android 4.2 Jelly Bean when support for widgets on the lock screen was first added, and it remains even though Android 5.0 deprecated the feature, so few apps support it.
Whether this restriction will remains to be seen, but in the meantime, some Google apps still support the old KEYGUARD constant from Jelly Bean, so Rahman was able to add widgets from Google Clock and Google Finance to the dashboard. This revealed even more UI issues where the lock screen itself covered the widget panel, but the ones that were added were functional.
So it’s safe to say that we won’t see this feature in Android 14, as we assumed when we first saw signs of a new lock screen widget system in development, but given that the feature is functional, an Android 15 debut seems very likely. Another place to temper your expectations might be the form factor: the name “shared” as well as other clues in the code, such as the mention of a “shared surface”, indicate that the feature may be primarily intended for devices with large-screen devices that support Google’s new hub mode, such as the Pixel Tablet.
But Rahman discovered another feature in development that could enable lock screen widgets on phones, even though the “shared” implementation relies on hub mode and won’t be available on smaller devices. The Google At a Glance widget on Pixel phones is built into the home screen and lock screen, so it’s not a widget in the traditional sense. Instead, the company calls it Smartspace, which infuses information from various sources into a specific area of the screen. Other widgets may soon become one of these sources.
Despite various sources of information, At a Glance does not support RemoteViews, the system Android uses to allow apps to send data to the home screen for use in widgets. However, Rahman found evidence that Google is working on adding RemoteViews support to the feature. This is not a guarantee of the potential functionality of widgets on the lock screen, but Google may use new possibilities for the “At a Glance” feature to show information from third-party widgets on the home screen and lock screen.
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