Google is continuing its Android tablet push with widgets optimized for large screens. The first tablet widgets are coming from Google Drive and Keep.
The company says a “larger screen size deserves more spacious widgets.” Today, Google Drive’s Quick Actions widget lets you quickly open the app, search, upload, open the built-in camera, and start a new document. It’s available as either a strip or ‘x’/petal configuration.
On tablets, Quick Actions is adding a second row with shortcuts that directly open the Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets apps. This is intended to provide quicker access than the combined file/folder view.
Meanwhile, the Google Keep widget switches from a right rail to a bottom bar of sorts. Shortcuts to create a checklist, voice memo, drawing, and picture note appear at the very bottom, while a FAB (floating action button) is used for text. A scrollable list of notes is above it and this design is very similar to Gmail’s widget.
Google will continue “to optimize your favorite Google apps on tablets to make multi-tasking a breeze.” As of today, these Android tablet widget updates are not yet rolled out to Google Drive or Keep.
It follows a handful of updates for Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides in recent weeks that introduced drag and drop actions that work on text, images, and uploads.
More on Android tablets:
- Here’s every Google app getting an Android tablet UI, and what updates are live [U: Google TV]
- Lenovo releasing $249 Android 12L tablet early next year
- What Android 13 features have not yet launched and when they’re coming
- Android 12L arrives on Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S8 with taskbar and more
Add 9to5Google to your Google News feed.
google-news
Author: Abner Li
Source: 9TO5Google
