Saturday, October 5, 2013

Meta Widget: Add Interactive web contents on Home Screen!


We have seen many creative ideas in Android development, from Touchpal keyboard and Buzz launcher to simpler Android applications like Timetable and Notification Toggle – all having something new to say. Here we are to introduce a very clever Android widget application that fascinated us. We have already introduced some very powerful Android widget creator apps, each of them enabling the user to create custom widgets for their Home Screen. Meta Widgetlets you take one huge step further, create interactive custom widgets from web contents. Let’s break the task to 2 tasks: You bring the Creativity while Meta Widget creates your creativity.
Using Meta you can take a portion of a website, convert it to a widget and bring it to your home screen. This unique app lets you browse to any website within its built-in browser and gives you the tools to clip any part of the content into interactive widgets. It is almost possible to parse out any web contents: texts, images, lists, tables and feeds. Now you can have your local newspapers, images, maps, posts, forum threads and even Facebook pages right on your home screen. It is especially useful for website owners to observe site statistics (stat counter) right from their home screen.

Meta-Widget
The app gives you a 1×1 widget. After you clipped the web content, you can adjust the size to fill any space you require.
Besides everything mentioned, the app gives you the option to modify the look & feel of your widget. Feel free to adjust text size, text color, widget alignment, background color and clicking behavior. The clicking action can be set to: update the content, open browser or to open widget configuration window. What we miss here is the feature to open a custom app. The pro version of Meta has an auto update feature that automatically updates the widget contents in the specified time interval. In the widget configuration window you can also give an Item sort order, see the content URL, modify CSS path as well as an option to repair the broken authorization.
 Meta-Widget-Settings
 Pros: Unique method of widget creation, Configurable widgets
Cons: The app needs an update to fix some bugs like compatibility with different devices, but it seems the developers have no plan to update the application since it has not been updated for about 10 months.

We recommend you to use this application. You can create widgets that nobody has ever seen. The only thing is that the app might not work on your device, just try and see if it does. Other than that, head to the store, install it and start creating your own creative widgets.
 Meta Widget General Features
  • Bring web contents to your home screen
  • Easy to use – create widget within a second
  • Create unlimited number of widgets
  • Resizable & customizable widgets
  • User defined click actions
  • Manual & auto update
  • & many more

Style Widget is a Weather and Clock Widget Supporting Different Themes


We have already reviewed  bunch of weather and clock applications and widgets with the same purpose but different designs and features. Style Widget is another graphical clock and weather app which has something new to say. Focusing on customization, Style Widget lets the users change the widget UI using themes. You don’t need to download new themes from the web if you are already using either Beautiful Widgets or Fancy Widgets to decorate your Home Screen. Other than the mentioned apps, you can still enjoy the pretty default glossy theme if you don’t have any of those two apps or other apps which provide themes and icons.
The application provides 8 home screen widgets suitable for different user’s taste and of course screen sizes: 4 combined weather and clock widgets, 1 2×1 separate clock widget and 3 weather only widgets. The 1×1 weather widget displays a weather icon and the time only. The other two weather widgets shows forecast for 5 upcoming days.

Style-Widget-Themes
The original language to this application in not English (its Korean), this app is only a translated version of that and I must say the translation is not that good.
Select any of the widgets and the settings window appears. This window enables us to modify city, select themes, give an update interval and select units and time formats. You can manually type in your city or you can use Real Time Geo-location to detect your city automatically using your device’s current position. The other thing I noticed here is that you can’t use multiple widgets with different settings. As you modify any options for a widget, that would be applied to all others too.

Style-Widget-Settings
On the widget, clicking the time will get you to the alarm clock application and clicking the weather part will open up the main Style Widget application. There is no option to change these shortcuts, unfortunately. From within the main application you can access information for wind, humidity, real feel and 5 days forecast. You can also add 4 more cities and follow their weather conditions if you want.
 Pros: Nice weather icons, support for Fancy Widgets and Beautiful Widgets themes
Cons: Very sluggish, All the widgets are applied with one settings and you can not modify the settings of each widgets separately

General Features
  • 8 weather/clock widgets
  • Support for Fancy Widgets and Beautiful Widgets themes
  • 5 days forecast
  • Customizable text color
  • Support for transparent background color


Pills On The Go: Pill Reminder App for Android


This happens to all of us forgetting to take our pills especially when we are travelling or busy working. Guys at App Singularity think they have a solution to this agonizing situation. They have introduced an application for Android which focuses on reminding users to take their pills on time. Using alarms and widgets, Pills on the Go as an pill reminder app for Android, can remind you regardless of where you currently are and you will not forget to take them anymore as long as you take your phone with you. Using the homescreen widgets, medication plans are always in front of your eyes.


Pills-on-the-go-widget
Use Pills on the Go to keep track of your drugs. Use the app’s intuitive user interface to add your plans, medicine, days of week, time and dose. Medication amounts don’t have to be whole pills, since 0.5 is selectable as well. Now for the final step, drag the widget to your homescreen and leave the rest to the application. The app will let you know when you need to take your next pill.

Pills-on-the-go
Pills on the Go offers two different widget sizes: 4×2 and 4×1. Use the widgets to keep track of your medicines right from your Home Screen. The 4×1 widget displays the next upcoming schedule alert. Clicking the widget opens up the plans window where you can see the whole schedule alerts for the week and add a new plan if you want. When it’s time to take the medicines, Pill on the Go notifies you with your custom specified ringtone and a notification indicating to take your pills. The alarm repeats for 30 minutes during which you have to take your pills or skip if you don’t like. To mark a pill as taken, click on the widget, click and hold on the desired plan and select Take from the opening float menu. That stops the app from alerting that plan anymore.
When you add a medicine, Pills on the Go asks you to enter the amount of pills you currently have and when you are going to resupply. The application analyzes these information and notify when you are going to run out of your pills, you get a visual cue when you need to take more medication. This way you will never run out of pills again.
 Pills-on-the-go-settings
Pros: User friendly UI, Alarm for the next medicine (plan)
Cons: Sluggish when you try to open the app using the widgets, and no more update by developers
 Pills on the GO General Features:
  • Get alarm for taking the pills
  • View the upcoming plan using the widgets
  • Very friendly user interface
  • Adjust your dose when taking medication
  • Auto repeat alarm for up to 30 minutes
  • Notifies when running out of medications