Customization is one thing that differentiates Android devices from their mobile counterparts; customizing your Android Lock Screen is a part of that. However, most phone are stuck with whatever lock screen comes with their phone. WidgetLocker comes to the rescue and provides the ability to place shortcuts, use custom sliders, and run widgets all from your Android lock screen. With WidgetLocker your lock screen has the ability to display information at a glance without having to unlock your phone.
Typical Android Lock Screen
Your typical Android lock screen does one thing: allow you to unlock your device. With WidgetLocker you can completely transform the way your Android Lock Screen works, making it more useful, fun, and dramatically better looking.
WidgetLocker Android Lock Screen
WidgetLocker is a slick Android lock screen replacement that allows you to place widgets, shortcut, and pretty much anything else you can run on your phone directly onto your phone’s lock screen. So instead of having to swipe and unlock your phone to see the weather, as just one example, you can simply turn your phone on and have it displayed right there on your Android lock screen.
With WidgetLocker you can add new sliders which accomplish pretty much anything you can think of, like opening your SMS inbox, muting your phone, or opening another application. You can add up to five sliders onto the Android lock screen, which means you can keep a default slide left to unlock and slide right to silence slider, and also have another allowing slide left for SMS and slide right for launching your camera app to ensure you never miss another photo opportunity.
You can also place any widget you use on your system onto the Android lock screen which allows you to add clocks, weather widgets, notifications, agenda’s, you name it right onto the lock screen of your phone. If you’re wondering, “but if place a Twitter widget on my lock screen and I click it doesn’t that defeat the purpose of the lock screen?”. WidgetLocker has you covered by allowing you to disable clicks on the Android lock screen, yet still allowing the widget to pull and display your Twitter stream.
The screenshot on this page is from my phone, as you can see I have a dark Android wallpaper set. Moving from top to bottom I have:
- SimiClock widget which shows date, time, weather, and battery level.
- Android Agenda Widget which shows my current agenda (styled to match the dark theme I’m going for)
- Minimalistic Text Widget which I’m only using to display the text “INFO:”
- Missed It! Widget which displays missed calls, and Google Voice, Google+, and Gmail notifications
- and at the bottom is a custom skinned slider
With it’s built in ability to load skinned sliders, WidgetLocker is really only constrained by your imagination and needs. Performance is awesome, at least on my device, and there is no noticeable drain on the speed or battery life of my phone.
Beyond simply making your Android lock screen look pretty, WidgetLocker also has some neat extra’s down in it’s settings menu. You can configure a ton of unlock methods like unlock via Back Button, Camera Button, etc. You can also set actions to the various buttons within Android to perform different actions. There’s even more options (easy wake, hide notification bar, sound on unlock) letting you customize until your heart is content. You can use WidgetLocker with music playing applications and control the pause, play, and volume right from your lock screen.
WidgetLocker Android Lock Screen Examples
Here are a few more examples of how you can make your Android lock screen look with WidgetLocker:
WidgetLocker is made by Teslacoil software and typically runs $1.99, which isn’t much for the functionality it brings to your Android lock screen. It’s available via:
- Android Market
- Amazon AppStore
- Direct Purchase from Teslacoil
You can find additional themes for WidgetLocker by searching the Android Market for WidgetLocker Themes or head over to XDA and check out this MASSIVE thread of themes users have compiled.
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Try Speed Launcher Pro/Lite. Its a good alternative for Lock Screen.