Google has announced that lock screen widgets will be coming to Android 16 phones later this year. Widgets have been available on the Pixel lock screen since last year, but now Google is adding them to phones and other tablets.
All widgets will support the lock screen by default, although app developers will have the option to disable support if they wish. Certain actions with widgets, such as launching an app, will still require authentication with a fingerprint, pin, or face unlock before they will work.
The upcoming changes were announced on the Android Developers Blog, where the company confirmed that lock screen widgets will be added to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) in the first quarterly update after the release of Android 16, which will take place in late summer. Android 16 itself is still in beta and is scheduled for release in June.
Although lock screen widgets for phones are not yet enabled in the latest Android 16 beta, Mishaal Rahman of Android Authority managed to activate the feature earlier. He found that while Pixel tablet users can access lock screen widgets by swiping to the right of the home screen, the current implementation for phones is only available through Android’s screen saver mode, which requires the phone to be charged or docked. However, in its blog post, Google notes that the mechanism for launching the widget interface is customized by hardware manufacturers, so we may see different approaches when an update is released.
Another difference from the Pixel Tablet implementation comes down to the screen size. Instead of a two-row grid of widgets, in Rahman’s video, the widgets are arranged vertically, and there’s only enough space on the screen for a couple of them at a time, so you have to swipe the screen to access them all.
