Last year, Google Contacts introduced new Material You widgets and is now planning to let you “See messages on your widget.”
About APK Insight: In this “APK Insight” post, we’ve decompiled the latest version of an application that Google uploaded to the Play Store. When we decompile these files (called APKs, in the case of Android apps), we’re able to see various lines of code within that hint at possible future features. Keep in mind that Google may or may not ever ship these features, and our interpretation of what they are may be imperfect. We’ll try to enable those that are closer to being finished, however, to show you how they’ll look in case that they do ship. With that in mind, read on.
Version 4.26.x details this upcoming ability that involves granting notification access to Google Contacts. This will let you “see and respond to the latest messages from your contacts.”
- <string name=”notification_permission_dialog_title”>See messages on your widget</string>
- “To see and respond to the latest messages from your contacts, allow notification access for Contacts.”
In theory, this should work with any messaging app on your device.
This feature is presumably for the Individual contact widget that was redesigned in October from its original large circular layout. The homescreen object can be pill-shaped or a rectangle that takes up your entire screen.
The app also offers “Favorite contacts” to see up to seven of your top starred people. Google detailed last year how it was built with Jetpack Glance (after previously using RemoteViews).
This is basically Google Contacts replicating the functionality of Android’s system-level Conversations widget, which was introduced with Android 12 but hasn’t seen any updates since then.
This upcoming Google Contacts capability is not yet live.
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