Gemini’s Widgets Get A Fresh Coat Of Material You With Google’s Newest Update

The sign of a fully functional operating system is when widgets both become unobtrusive to the user interface and useful for users themselves. It took Apple way too long before it fully bought into the widgeting world of smartphones, and even though there are major differences between Android and iOS themes, widgets across both operating systems serve the same purpose: quick access to fundamentally important apps. On Android, there are numerous widgets we can’t live without, such as the offerings from Inoreader and Google Keep. Nowadays, you can even build your own custom widgets using Tasker’s AI integration. Speaking about AI, Google Gemini has consistently gotten updates to help improve the user experience. We even asked our readers about their thoughts on Gemini’s relatively new compact UI on Android, and the responses were pretty positive. Keeping with the theme, a new set of Gemini widgets is rolling out across both Android and iOS.

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First reported by 9to5Google, the latest update of the Gemini app on iPhones added homescreen widgets to the app’s feature set. Last month, the app was updated to receive lockscreen, Control Center, and Action Button shortcuts, so it felt like the addition of iOS widgets was inevitable. Mere hours later, the Android version of the Gemini app rolled out a resizable homescreen widget with an update. It can be resized from a 1×1 block to a 5×3 block, with different features appearing depending on the widget’s size. On Android, this is up to date with the version 1.0.751104895 update of the app. We can verify this on Android Police’s end; if the update is not yet available on Google Play, it’s available to sideload on APKMirror.

Other Gemini updates aim at improving the UI

The widget on Android was supercharged with Material You, which is Google’s overarching design language that first debuted on Android 12. Like a mature OS with useful widgets, the design system has improved as time has gone on, but we weren’t completely thrilled about it when it debuted a number of years ago. Nonetheless, Google continues to trounce any app or software in its library that has yet to be influenced by Material You, and surprisingly, there are still many apps that need refreshening.

Now, let’s get back to some of Google Gemini’s more-recent updates. We already touched on our readers’ opinions on Google Gemini’s new compact UI, which allows users to see more of the screen while retaining functionality. Gemini Extensions — they’re actually called Gemini Apps, now — were upgraded to Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking in March, giving them a fantastic performance boost. Today, we reported on Google Drive on Android potentially getting some useful Gemini AI features that would summarize files and folders, among other things, in due time. There are a lot of ways you can make your life a little easier by using Gemini’s productivity features, and we can help you get started with them.