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'Floating Widgets' Brings Floating Multitasking Widgets To Your Tablet

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Babyfacemagee:

We've been a bit of a 'floating app kick' for the past few weeks.  If there's one useful feature from the, dare I say, Windows UI that I always wanted on Android it's the ability to 'float' widgets or apps on top of others so that you could keep them on screen in a multi-tasking environment while working on other things simultaneously.  Now recently we've seen a spat of 'specific' floating apps.  We've had a chat client, a calculator and a browser in LilyPad HD and AirTerm  and 'OverSkreen' and I encourage you to search them out on Play.Google.  But what we haven't had until now is a 'general purpose' floating app and I'm happy to say that's where 'Floating Widget' comes in by the developer Stephen Milone.  Curious what you can do with 'Floating Widget'?   Take a look below at some of the possibilities and watch the video for more info.


--- Quote ---- Control your local or streaming music without leaving your current app?
- Have a sports scoreboard up while using your e-book reader?
- View a data usage widget in real time while using the app you’re testing?
- Have a clock on the screen while playing a full screen game?
- View CPU usage while you’re interacting with an app?
- Have the a traffic indicator widget always up while commuting?
--- End quote ---


Floating Widget for Android Demo
Now we should warn you upfront that 'Floating Widgets' is in active development and there a ton of bugs on individual widgets.  Some work, some don't and some partially work with some but not all features.  One by one the developers are going through and fixing and tweaking things to get it all working smoothly but the process isn't going to be overnight.  Also, we recommend you watch the video above.  The program isn't the most intuitive around.  For instance when you install it there's no clear idea of how to use it.  You have to press the 'Select Widget' button which will bring up a scrollable list of widgets to choose from.  Even after you 'select' the widget you want to work with it seems at first nothing happens.  So you have to then select the 'set location' button and choose where to place it on your home screen.  Even though it's not the most intuitive user interface...and hopefully they'll improve it...once you get the hang of it it actually works fairly well and is very useful.  I love the ability to have widgets floating above my browser while I'm surfing the web.  Give it a try at the link below.  It's only $1.49 and adds a lot of functionality to your tablet.

Floating Widgets For Android

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