Listen Audiobook Player’s 1×1 widget is an example other Android media players should follow
I don’t use a lot of widgets on my phone these days, because I find that it’s often easier to just open the app in question if the widgets are so large that you need multiple home pages to fit them in anyways. I’ve especially been annoyed at media player widgets, who seem to think that the smallest possible widget size that makes sense is 4×1, and most of which don’t work well with above average home screen grid sizes. Enter Listen Audiobook Player‘s 1×1 widget, definite proof that other media players are just wrong.
Listen’s 1×1 widget is as simple as a 1×1 widget that shows the book cover of the currently playing audio book, overlaid with a play button when not playing. That’s it. It simple, yet it allows you to start playback from a widget small enough to fit in with other icons.
I don’t know why this widget size isn’t standard for other media players, but it should be. You might argue that music players need more advanced playback controls than just play/pause, but with pretty much every music player having playback controls in the notification pull-down these days, that’s not really an issue either.
So, if any Android media player developers are reading this, please look at Listen and follows its example.
