YouTube Music, Google Photos, and Play Books getting new Android widgets

Abner Li | Dec 1 2021 - 9:00 am PT

Following Gmail last week, Play Books, Google Photos, and YouTube Music are set to get new widgets on Android.

As expected, YouTube Music is getting a “Recently Played” widget that consists of two rows. The first notes your current track complete with album art, title, and artist, with buttons for play/pause and liking. You then get five shortcuts to recent videos, albums, and playlists for quick listening. Assuming the widget offers relevant suggestions and immediate playback, users will have one less reason to open the full app.

This joins “Turntable,” which has the same functionality as the first row, and the old “Now Playing” widget with full controls.

Meanwhile, Play Books is surprisingly getting a new widget. For the longest time, the app has offered a homescreen object that lets you vertically scroll book covers. The new one makes use of a sheet with headphones marking audio content.

Google touts a new ability to “access your full library of books and even keep track of your audiobook progress.” The latter functionality reflects the popularity of that capability inside Play Books, which has not seen a major update in quite some time.

Lastly, Google Photos for Android is getting a new “People & Pets” widget that compliments “Your memories.” After placing, users can select up to 10 of their favorite humans or creatures, a frame style, and Google “will do the rest, decorating your Home screen with your nearest and dearest.”

This is basically an auto-album in widget form and could be more popular than the event-based one available today.