Last year saw a bunch of rumors about the possibility of lock screen widgets returning to Android. While they did make a comeback, lock screen widgets were only brought back for Google’s Pixel Tablet. That looks set to change this summer.
Over on the Android Developers Blog, Product Manager Tyler Beneke and Software Engineer Luca Silva confirmed that lock screen widgets will be making a full comeback this summer. Specifically the feature will be coming to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) on phones and tablets in “late summer 2025” after the release of Android 16.
Android 16 is currently expected to launch before the end of Q2 2025, with rumors suggesting the update should arrive sometime in late May or June.
How Android lock screen widgets could work
This being the Developers Blog, this news is to ensure that app developers have enough time and notice to get their lock screen widgets ready. But there are still a few details we can glean from the blog, and how lock screen widgets will work on non-Pixel Tablets.
The blog confirms lock screen widgets must adhere to the same rules as regular Android widgets, and that any activities launched from them will require user authentication first.
So your fingerprint, face or passcode, all in the name of privacy. Which is no bad thing. Developers can also opt-out of having their widgets displayed on the lock screen, so this definitely won’t be universally available.
Adding lock screen widgets to the AOSP won’t automatically bring lock screen widgets to existing phones running Android 16, though. It’ll all be down to the individual phone maker — Samsung, OnePlus or whoever — to add the functionality through an update.
Individual phone makers will also be able to choose “the mechanism that triggers the lock screen experience”, such as docking or charging. It’s also suggested they will have the option to pre-set default widgets, but won’t be able to customize the user interface. Not initially, at any rate.
Android’s history with lock screen widgets
Lock screen widgets were actually available in Android’s early days, only for Google to remove them with the release of Android 5.0 (Lollipop) in late 2014. Lock screens were then left sparsely decorated for over a decade, even after Apple added lock screen widgets to iOS 16 back in 2022.
Last year saw a bunch of rumors suggesting Google could reverse its decision with the release of Android 15 — which launched last October. However the closer we got to release, the more apparent it was that Google was keeping it reserved for the Pixel Tablet. Other Android tablets, and all Android phones, were left to indefinitely manage without.
Thankfully though, it seems Google is making up for all this and finally bringing the feature back after over 10 years.
As for which phones will offer it quickly, that’s still unclear. Google's own Pixels are all but guaranteed, but the rest? That’ll be completely up to who wants to play ball, and who can update their existing phones quickly.
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