Google’s At a Glance widget gets two new features

Google is currently testing two new features for the At a Glance widget and they are very useful. Here they are.

What is the At a Glance widget?

The home screen of Pixel phones has a handy widget called “At a Glance,” which is part of the Google app. This widget shows useful information, such as the date, weather, reminders and your next appointment in the calendar. This information can also be found on the lock screen.

In addition, the widget also shows flight information if you have received flight tickets via Gmail. Think of data about the airport and flight schedules. Pressing the Nest or Ring doorbell also shows this. If your Pixel is set to the Dutch language, the widget will be called Quick Overview.

There are two versions of the “At a Glance” widget: the “Smartspace” version that is part of the Pixel Launcher, and the widget version available through the Google app on any Android phone.

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1. New privacy option

It looks like Google’s Pixel Launcher is getting a privacy option that shows exactly what data is being used by the “At a Glance” widget. By default, the app can access your calendar and location to show the time, date, and weather. But Google is adding more and more new possibilities to the widget, such as data from shared transport and delivery apps. As information from more apps appears in the widget, it becomes harder to remember what permissions the app has. This privacy option provides more clarity about this.

Nail Sadykov discovered the privacy feature and shows how the feature works on Twitter. So you can reveal information about the apps used by the widget by long-pressing it. After long-pressing the widget, a context menu appears with the option ‘Why are you seeing this?’. There you will see a list of apps where the widget gets information from.

This privacy option may only work for the Smartspace version of At A Glance. That’s because most launchers don’t show a popup on widgets if you long-press them. Hopefully Google will come up with a solution to provide the widget version of ‘At a Glance’ with this function as well.

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2. Customize ‘At a Glance’ widget appearance

Google is testing even more features for the “At a Glance” widget, including a new style option that lets you personalize the widget. Nail Sadykov discovered this feature in the Google app beta and shared a screenshot of it Twitter.

Two new features have been added to the menu that appears when you open the settings for the ‘At a Glance’ widget. Unfortunately, both ‘Style’ and ‘Customize’ do not yet work as you would expect. Exactly which adjustment options Google has in mind is therefore only known in Mountain View.

Do you often use the At a Glance widget on your (Pixel) phone? Have you perhaps already seen one of these features? Let us know in the comments below this article.