The new widget comes in two sizes, large and small. The widget has a notification system that can alert you of new stories with an icon, LED, or vibration.

Large Widget
The large widget is 4×1 and displays the most recent post title and blurb, along with a timestamp and ‘read more’ link. Clicking the entry will launch the widget into full screen mode.

Small Widget
The small widget is a mini 1×1 and displays the most recent post title (sans blurb), along with the timestamp. Clicking the entry will launch the widget into full screen mode.

Full Screen Mode
The widget in full screen mode displays the 10 most recent posts, our most recent promotion (in the top corner), and buttons to refresh the feed and launch the mobile site. Pressing Menu when in full screen mode will bring up the Settings, shown below.

Settings
The settings allow you to change the update frequency and notification preferences. When using the large or small widget, you can choose to turn on notifications that will alert you each time we make a new post. The alerts will place an icon in your notification tray along with an optional LED alert or vibration. You can even set the LED color to differentiate the alerts from those in your other apps.

Alerts
When a new story is posted and you’ve got notifications turned on, a small icon will appear in your tray. Each icon will display the number of stories posted since you last checked the widget. Clicking on the alert in the tray or launching the widget into full screen mode will clear the alert.

Installation
The widget is currently available in the Android Market. Here is a direct link.. Alternately, you can scan the QR code below with your phone to be taken to the Market page. Once you’ve got the widget installed, simply long press in a blank spot on your home screen. A menu will come up where you can select ‘Widgets’ and then select Android and Me Large or Android and Me Small.

If you were a upgrading, please uninstall before downloading the new version.

Scan to download.

The new version has been out for a day or two already and has already been downloaded over 1,000 times. Thanks for all the support you guys show our site, it really makes doing the work much easier. Also, keep an eye on the widget for a new contest announcement sometime in the next few days…

So what do you think? Do you guys like the new version? Is it an improvement over the old one?

Default widget view, 4x1 white space, displaying one entry

New Default Skin

The regular widget is still a 4×1 sized block that shows the latest post from Android And Me, but with a few small changes. Like I said earlier, the whole thing is now white which should help readability and just looks a bit cleaner. It also has a relative time stamp (e.g. “2 hours ago” – just to make sure you know just how behind you are). It also has a read more link – click anywhere in the entry to jump to the post on our mobile site. Clicking anywhere across the top of the widget will launch it into full screen mode.

Full screen mode, displaying the five most recent entries

Full Screen Mode

In full screen more, the widget displays the most recent five posts, all with timestamps and in alternating row colors. Again, the posts all have a read more links for jumping to the full article on the mobile site. In the bottom corner, there is a button for loading up the next five entries right in the widget. Also in full screen mode there is a small space in the top right corner for site announcements, anything we want to make ‘sticky’ to make sure as many readers as possible can see it, like when we launch a new bounty.

Mini widget displaying snippet of latest post

1×1 Mini Widget

One new feature dreamed up was the option to flip the widget into mini mode. The widget crunches down to a 1×1 piece of real estate (side note: in doing research for these drafts to make sure my sizing was correct and feasible I found plenty of help online, like Widget Design Guidelines, a page from the official Android Developers site). At best, the mini widget will only be able to display a few words of the most recent headline, but, combine that with a time stamp and its a decent amount of info for such a small space. Again, clicking any part of the entry will launch the mobile site, while clicking the top of the widget will launch full screen mode (as shown above).

Notification alert icon displaying two missed posts

Notification Alert Mode

Home screen way too crowded? Even too cramped to fit the 1×1 mini widget? Got you covered, with the notification alert mode. This mode would let the widget run silently in the background and then just display an icon (and optional alert, tone, light, etc) each time the site is updated. If you don’t catch it right away, the icon will just compile the number of entries you missed.

Full screen mode, with an active announcement

Conclusion

So far, this has been a really fun project for me. I’ve been using the RSS widget for about a week now so it was interesting to take that knowledge into a design process and just play around with it some. I think the new skin and display options should help the widget find a place in any phone setup, whether you’ve got space to spare or only want the bare minimum. As I worked on the drafts, more ideas for new features kept popping up (including the comments, even more display options, etc), but I figured I’ve already bitten off more than enough for one update, and I thought it would be fun to get some input from our readers before we committed to anything. What new features would you guys like to see? Is there anything we’ve completely overlooked?

Google I/O Winners

Over the weekend, we made a post to give away five free passes to Google I/O.  Since the conference is in a few weeks, I wanted to do an easy contest and pick the winners quickly so they could make travel arrangements.  The response was overwhelming and I feel bad we don’t have enough passes to go around.

On the other hand, it does feel good to reward five readers and give them such an excellent opportunity to attend this event.  There is no real order to the picks here.  I tried to go with the first five people who said they were interested and confirmed they could actually attend the event.

The five winners are:

1. Dylan Anderson
2. Karthikeyan Subramaniam
3. Justin Shapcott
4. Yoav Raccah
5. Jenifer Hanen

Thank you to everyone else who left a comment.  If any of these people back out or can’t make it, I have a list of alternates who are interested.  If your name was not on the list, you can still follow @googleio on Twitter to see if they link to any more free passes.  We look forward to meeting all you guys at the show.

Mobile Site Preview

Default install of WPTouch. Needs some work.

For several months I have been promising a mobile version of the site.  The full site loads in the Android browser, but it is way too slow over 2G/3G.  My brother was planning to provide a custom mobile site, but time has been a factor.  In order to have something working in time for Google I/O, we decided to just load the WPTouch plugin that some of the other Android sites have been using.  The plugin is actually quite powerful and we will be tweaking it over the coming weeks.

Point your mobile browser to http://androidandme.com and the plugin will automatically detect your browser agent and serve you the mobile site.  If you would like to toggle between the full and mobile site, there is an option in the footer of the site.  Check it out and let us know what you think.  We are open to all suggestions and criticism.

RSS Widget

Version 1.0 of the RSS widget.

I had been asking around for someone to create us a widget that would include our RSS feed.  Several developers had expressed interest in helping us out and we may end up releasing multiple widgets for the site.  The first person to provide a working widget was one of our readers Justin.

The widget Justin created is 4×1 cells and expands to the full screen when clicked.  If you see an entry you would like to read more about, another click will launch the new mobile version of the site.  Currently, there are no customization options for the widget.  If you guys have any ideas or suggestions, we would love to hear them.  Again, I am trying to see if Mr. Clark has enough time to design a fancy skin for it.

If you are interested in obtaining a RSS widget for you site, you can contact Justin at email.nex.software (at) gmail.com

Android and Me RSS Widget for Android
Version: 1.0
Developed By: Justin Shapcott
Price: FREE
Filesize: 44KB