When will HD Widgets 3.0 come out? We’re planning on Thursday, June 7th.

What’s new?

• massively vivid easier-to-use app UI
• built for new theme packs & add-ons
• ICS widgets pack
• high res weather icon pack
• customizable switches
• ICS native (built on sdk 15)
• universal apk (ready for modded tablets)
• more weather services
• even more colors & clocks
• multi-location weather activity
• device specific User Guide
• show/hide widgets in the main menu

That’s a big list and there’s a bit more that we’re hoping to have but won’t say in case they’re delayed.

We’ll release some features videos during the launch period. We picked up a camera last weekend and made a quick production teaser showing off some of the new UI and functionality:

Finally we’re excited to mention that HD Widgets was added to the Editors’ Choice list on Google Play. We’ve been working hard and hoped it would happen as the app got bigger & better so it was a wonderful surprise to be added now. Big thnx to the Play team =)

Most of you guys have already made this switch – we just need to get the stragglers. It’s pretty much due to weather alerts that we were checking every half-hour resulting in over 12 million hits a day. We’ve reduced that to ~3 million but it’s still too much. This problem only affects old versions of HD Widgets.

To make this easier for everyone we added a few perks. First off, we realized that we never actually wired up the notification settings and preferences for HD Widgets when we migrated the code over from Cloudskipper. With this release the app will recognize your settings.

We’ve had a lot of requests for a Clock widget so we added ten new layouts. We modified the Weather Activity to check for updates as soon as you open it, which is super practical (i.e. just click the weather icon). We fixed the ringer switch (it was reversed). And finally I added a green background because someone asked for it.

We’ve been working with a few design studios to create new themes for the 3.0 release. We’re expecting to introduce at least two new themes with the launch of 3.0 and we have three more themes already designed and waiting on development. I included a sneak peak of the new ICS theme in the screenshot above.

We’re still tied up with HD Widgets and getting the new themes in place. It’s not nearly as sexy as Cloudskipper but it pays the bills We’re getting close to where HDW can coast for a while and Cloudskipper can get our full attention. This will be a fun year!

If you haven’t grabbed the latest, download Cloudskipper now! It’s free =)

The newest release of HD Widgets includes our most requested feature: new toggle switches! We have over 20 switches to choose from at this point, almost too many to mention. However there are a few we want to highlight:

Do Not Disturb – this will turn off the ringer & notifications for a period of time for meetings, audience events, and such.

Battery indicator – not really a switch (we’ll follow up with a proper battery widget soon) and appears in some of the presets.

GPS, USB Tethering, WiFi Hotspot – these aren’t toggles inasmuch as shortcuts to the Settings. We can’t toggle these directly.

We’re also on our way towards offering more useful switch rows and finished the first step: Presets which include device and/or activity-based groups of switches:

• default
• 4G Phone
• 3G Phone
• Tablet
• Travel Phone
• Travel Tablet
• Games & Media
• Communications
• Power Saver

These are just the beginning; customizable switch rows will be coming next.

Other small updates: less-garish weather alert icon (hope u like it) and we replaced H/L with up & down arrows (so we don’t have to localize).

So that’s it. Grab the latest update from the market.

Much more to come!

This last week was crazy for HD Widgets. We took part in Google’s 10 Billion promotion and the results far exceeded our expectations. We thought we’d see a big bump in users, maybe 20k-30k. Instead we had 150k downloads in a single day!  Our app hit the #2 spot on the Paid Apps lists on Monday and now we’re settling down among the top 20 apps. From launch to top 20 in 5 weeks – yeah, crazy. Big thanks to everyone =)

HD Widgets also got a few updates yesterday. The big one was custom hot spots – you can now pick what app is launched when you click the clock and date. Weather and forecasts will continue to launch the big weather activity screen. And finally any of the hotspots can now be turned off. Also, we added about a dozen new Galaxy Note sized widgets and fixed some time-related issues.

What’s next? We’re going to take care of the basics in small steps for now, and save big updates for big releases. Next for Cloudskipper is better library navigation, including Folders, Podcasts, Genres, and Options Menu shortcuts. For HD Widgets we’re working on new switches and switch groups, as well as some new widgets (4×1 header, 2×1 clock).

That’s it.  Happy Holidays everyone!

https://market.android.com/details?id=apps_timed_promotion

We’re seeing 50-250 downloads per minute and it’s only 8am! Should be a busy day =)

In the meantime, we are paying attention to your feedback and ratings and we’re learning a lot. For example, there’s a bunch of new devices that have awesome new screens that don’t fit into existing parameters. We’ve been scouring Craigslist and Amazon so we can pick up these devices and start making HD Widgets (and Cloudskipper) work just as well on those devices as those we already possess.

We just picked up a Samsung Captivate to replace one of the Galaxy SII we had on loan. We’ve also ordered a Galaxy Nexus and expect that this week (just in time?). I’m picking up an Evo 3D Wednesday morning. That just leaves the Galaxy Tab and/or Note for us to figure out the 5x? size widgets.

We really care about design and quality, so the Android emulator just isn’t enough. By having these devices in our possession we can figure out obvious pitfalls in advance. We should have fixes for QHD devices in the next day or so and we should be ready for XHDPI screens a few days after that.

We have you guys to thank for making it so we can afford to keep up, so… thanks! =)

Big thanks to all of the blogs, writers and everyone who’s downloading. Your support is mightily appreciated!

Phones & Tablets

HD Widgets 2.0 moves from Tablet only to all Android Devices
- Android Spin

HD Widgets expanded for phones and 7-inch tablets
-Android Central

HD Widgets v2.1 now supports phones and 7″ tablets
- Android Community

HD Widgets 2.0 brings support for more screen sizes, more widgets
- Android Guys

HD Widgets App Receives 2.0 Update, Brings Support to Smartphones
- Talk Android

Tablets

HD Widgets Gives You Beautiful Weather and Clock Widgets for Your Android Honeycomb Tablet
- Phandroid

Sweeten Your Honeycomb Experience with HD Widgets
- Android Guys

HD Widgets App: Made for Honeycomb and look amazing
- Android Community

Cloud.tv introduces HD Widgets – fully customizable widgets designed specifically for Honeycomb tablets
- Android Central

HD Widgets For Android Devices, Look Especially Snazzy On Honeycomb Tablets
- Droid Life

HD Widgets gives Honeycomb custom clock, weather, and toggle widgets
- Androinica

Cloud.tv Launches HD Widgets App For Honeycomb Tablets
- Talk Android

HD Widgets offer Big Widgets for Big Screens
- Android Spin

HD Widgets 2.0 is a universal app for Android phones and Honeycomb tablets, and is the first to offer 7″ tablet size widgets (6×2, 6×1, 3×5).

Existing users may update for free on all of their Android devices.

The app’s UI provides an early taste of Ice Cream Sandwich, particularly in the tab & page navigation. In fact, swipe is fundamental to the core experience: almost all navigation and customization is done via left/right swipe gestures.

As a widget app, HD Widgets 2.0 was made to be as lightweight and flexible as possible. The app uses 4 unique apks based on screen size & resolution. Each version supplies only the images necessary for that particular device, thus reducing storage space while providing pixel-perfect resolution.

This latest release is totally reorganized and built for future expansion. The old Preview activity has been replaced with two new activities: Active Widgets for finding and customizing existing widgets and Themes to preview each theme’s collection. Quick Tips have been replaced with a User Guide to help new Android users who are unfamiliar with widgets. Finally, all HD Widgets are now organized by size groups (1×1, 2×1, etc) making it easy to locate them at the start of your widget menu.

We didn’t expect to do a giant huge update – we only wanted to get it ported to phones. But soon into development we realized this was going to be a brand new app (4 actually) under the hood. Existing 10″ tablet users will notice only a few changes: widgets are thicker and there’s a few new ones. But the phone app and 7″ tablet layouts are entirely new.

This also took much longer than we had planned. We can finally return to focus on Cloudskipper for the next few months. We’ll work on bug fixes but we’re not planning to add any major features to HD Widgets until after Cloudskipper 2.0 is released. Still, we may toss in one or two new themes, just to keep things interesting or if we get wrestless.

Thanks to everyone who helped out with testing and support, and additional thanks to everyone who bought the app – you make it easy for us to keep this up.

For everyone else – support the cause! Get off the fence and go download HD Widgets now =)

Mike’s Desk

Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, Motorola Xoom 10.1, Samsung Galaxy S II, & Nexus One

Radley’s Desk

Motorola Droid 2, Samsung Galaxy S II, HTC Droid Eris, Acer Iconia Tab A100, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, & Nook Color (shot on an iPhone 3GS)

Note: all cables have been removed and tucked away in the interest of good taste…