Despite being resource intensive, I could never blame Android for lack of features. Unlike iOS, Google's mobile operating system has always offered the widest possible range of options. Not that it left developers no room for further improvement, but most of the mechanisms and tools that make it easier to use have been implemented a long time ago. But since Android always had problems with updates, and, therefore, with expanding capabilities, applications were the main source of new functions for the OS.
Android 11 has a lot of cool features and the music control widget is one of them
In Android 11, the Google developers decided to improve the mechanics of audio playback control. To do this, they added a small widget to the notification curtain with buttons for play / pause, rewind and switch between playback sources. It is rather strange that the company failed to integrate a similar innovation into previous OS versions, for example, by updating Google Play services. However, this does not mean that it is impossible to get an identical tool. On the contrary, it is very possible.
Music control widget on Android
- Download Power Shade app from Google Play;
- Run the application and give it the necessary privileges;
Power Shade won't work without permissions
- Turn on Power Shade with the 'Running' slider;
- Turn on any track, open the notification shade and control playback.
At first glance, it might seem that the widget is simply changing the appearance of the playback control tool, which Android already contains, but in a less attractive form. However, it is not. Besides the fact that it allows you to conveniently switch between tracks, it also offers hot access to external playback sources. For example, I have a speaker constantly connected to my smartphone, which is in the kitchen. I don't know what was the matter, but without this widget I had to constantly turn it on and off forcibly so that the connection was reset and the music could be displayed on it.
How to switch playback to Android
Power Shade is a super handy thing that I really missed
With Power Shade, everything happens instantly. I just click on the Phone Speaker button, in the window that opens, I select a speaker or headphones, depending on what is currently connected to the smartphone, and send playback to an external sound source. It's super convenient. But the advantages of the widget do not end there either. It turns out that it can simultaneously keep several tracks in memory at once, if they are played from different applications. In this way, I can play tracks from the memory of the smartphone itself and from the Yandex.Music application, which I also use from time to time. And you can switch between them simply by swiping left and right.
With applications like Power Shade, I am once again convinced that there is absolutely no need for updates to expand the capabilities Android. If we are not talking about security issues and the overall performance of the operating system, but touching upon the topic of exclusively increasing functions, then applications from Google Play simply have no competitors. The same iOS severely restricts users and does not particularly allow them to improve the available list of functions, leaving this right mainly for updates.