Home Screen Widgets With Pre-Rendered Dynamic App Content
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing systems for displaying application information on mobile device home screens are inefficient, requiring users to launch applications, navigate through screens, and consume excessive processing resources, leading to high latency and battery drain.
Innovation Solution
Implementing widget user interfaces defined in declarative syntax, with data retrieved from application extensions, allowing for pre-rendering of dynamic content by background processes, and enforcing policies on update timing and resource usage to optimize efficiency.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of time
If application information is displayed by launching the application, then the information is accessible, but user interaction time and device processing time increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-renders widget user interfaces in advance for future display times by a background or daemon process. When a container for a widget is shown on a displayed home screen, one of the rendered user interfaces is shown according to the current time, providing immediate display without requiring application launch.
2Loss of time
If application information is displayed by launching the application, then the information is accessible, but device processing time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-renders widget user interfaces in advance for future display times by a background or daemon process. When a container for a widget is shown on a displayed home screen, one of the rendered user interfaces is shown according to the current time, providing immediate display without requiring application launch.
3Loss of time
If widget user interfaces are rendered in advance, then responsive user experience with low latency is provided, but device memory usage increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system enforces various policies for containers with regard to rendering update timing, rendering update frequency, and rendering execution time to optimize resource usage. Different rendering strategies are applied to different containers based on their specific requirements and resource constraints.
4Loss of information
If application is frequently woken to update widget content, then content is current, but power consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system enforces various policies for containers with regard to rendering update timing and rendering update frequency. Data for display may be retrieved from an application extension to minimize waking of the application, using periodic updates rather than continuous synchronization.
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
AI summary
A device implementing a system to render widget user interfaces for display of dynamic application content on a home screen includes a processor configured to identify a container associated with a first home screen, the container corresponding to an application. The processor is further configured to retrieve data describing a plurality of user interfaces, associated with respective times, of the application. The processor is further configured to render, based on the data, the plurality of the user interfaces in advance of the respective times. The processor is further configured to determine that the first home screen is currently displayed. The processor is further configured to select a first rendered user interface from the rendered user interfaces, wherein the respective time associated with the first rendered user interface corresponds to a current time. The processor is further configured to display the selected first rendered user interface on the first home screen.