Messages widget background in Android 12 changes with messages

Android 12 is starting to take its final shape. In the second beta, Google introduced, among other things, the renewed notification panel, power menu and system theme. With the second beta version, the message widget is also starting to take shape, and part of that shape is a background that moves with the context of your message(s).

Messages widget in Android 12

For years, widgets for Android were at a standstill. Material You, Google’s new design language for all its ecosystems, is changing that. At the opening presentation of I/O 2021, Google showed, among other things, renewed widgets for the weather and the clock. For the first time in years, Google is also releasing one widget that will merge information from different messaging apps into one widget: the messaging widget.

In the preview version of Android 12 – as well as the first beta version – it was not possible to use the messaging widget. From Android 12 Beta 2 that will change. The widget can now be enabled and brings messages from WhatsApp and Telegram together in one widget. In the widget you can see the sender’s name with – if available – a profile picture, the logo of the app and the message below. This can be in text, as an emoji or a logo if it is a photo or other type of file.

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The background color of the widget is basically determined by the set system theme. In Android 12, the widget can also customize the background of the widget based on “elements in the message”, that discovered Twitter user @neil_rahmouni. For the time being, this is a subtle change, in which, for example, exclamation marks, question marks or emoji are ‘shown’ in the background if those elements are present in the received message.

Emoji or text customization

Research by XDA shows that Google searches for specific combinations in messages. For example, if emoji appear twice in a message, the emoji will appear in the background. This also applies to exclamation marks and question marks, or combinations of both elements. It is possible that even more options will become available in these widgets in the future, but for Android 12 Google seems to stick to these customization options.

What do you think of the messaging widget in Android 12? Would you use such a widget, or would you rather stick with the widgets of the messaging apps themselves? Let us know in the comments at the bottom of the article.