Samsung Galaxy S4 Lock Screen Widget Tutorial

Lock Screen Widgets is new feature on Android 4.2, the feature included on the Samsung Galaxy S4 which Samsung takes advantage of with a camera widget or favorite apps. You’ll also have the usual lock screen shortcuts to open if the widget method requires too many swipes.

The lockscreen has multiple panels, each containing one widget. The page to the right of the default one is special and can either be a list of favorite apps (the default TouchWiz setting) or a shortcut for the camera (as in pure Android). The pages to the left contain different widgets – email, Google Now, Messaging, music player, Yahoo! Finance and News and you can download apps from the Play Store that add new widgets. You can change the greeting on the lockscreen by hitting the edit button. You can type something else, choose a different font and color. You can also disable the personal message altogether and remove the time and date info.

There are no app shortcuts at the bottom of the screen by default – the Favorite Apps widget to the right has taken over that role, but you can enable them and have up to five easily accessible shortcuts.

Out of the box, Samsung has actually disabled lock screen widgets in a sense, but with a couple of taps through Settings, you can get your device up and running them in no time.

With a secure lock screen enabled (like pattern or PIN), you are unable to use lock screen widgets. The options to turn them off completely disappear should you go with a secure lock screen. This is unfortunate, especially since stock Android allows you to utilize lock screen widgets with a pattern or PIN.

In the Samsung Galaxy S4 lock screen widget tutorial video below, we take you on a detailed tour of Samsung’s take on lock screen widgets. It can be a bit finicky at times, to say the least, but once you get the hang of them, we think you’ll enjoy widgets at phone wake just as much as the rest of us who live and die with Nexus devices, do.