CyanogenMod Chronus clock widget looks great, fixes stock clock woes
I’ve discussed before how not everyone was a fan of the new clock widget added in Android 4.2, as well as how to change the widget to a more consistent version or remove lockscreen widgets altogether. Of course, fixing little problems like this with added customization and features is one of the many reasons that people use custom ROMs like CyanogenMod, and for today’s featured improvement, the team has come up with a number of changes to Google’s stock clock widget that make it much better looking and more useful.
It may seem a bit odd to talk so much about a simple clock widget, but there are many sticklers for design in the Android community. The Android OS has never been known for its inherent beauty, but through customization can be made to look great with many different styles. And the new CyanogenMod 10.1 clock widget, called Chronus, is a good example of such design customization.
The widget adds weather and calendar events to the mostly stock Android 4.2 clock, whose design may be familiar to those who used the optional lockscreen weather settings in CM10. The weather information is customizable in the CM settings and changes based on location as one would expect, and the calendar function ties into Google Calendar and shows upcoming events. In addition to being used on the lockscreen, the widget can also be used on the homescreen as a replacement for HD Widgets, although I’m not sure if I can make that transition just yet.
Oddly enough, I’m actually not running CyanogenMod on either of my Android devices right now, and as such I can’t test out the new clock widget firsthand. (For those wondering how I could be running anything but CM, my Nexus 4 has to stay stock until I finish the review, and my 8GB Nexus 7 was returned to stock to be sold since I just bought a 32GB version.) However, based on how well the hacked-together weather settings on CM10 worked and the quality of the CM team’s usual work, I can’t wait to install CM10.1 on either of my Nexus devices to try this and many other features – especially the customizable notification panel.
[Google+]
