Google has been listening — not just to your conversations but also to your complaints. Specifically about the Gmail widget on your iPhones and iPads. The internet giant will be adding a new Gmail widget and support for keyboard shortcuts within Google Sheets on iOS.

The original Gmail widget was removed last year as it wasn’t well-received. It only offered quick links to your inbox, compose menu, and search. This left users with no way to preview the content of their inboxes but still teased them by revealing just the number of unread emails.

However, the new Gmail widget is set to right those wrongs. It will allow iPhone users to view the sender and subject fields of the most recent emails right on the home screen. Users will also be able to see their profile picture on the top left-hand side and the compose email button on the bottom left-hand side. The new widget will be rolled out to iPhone and iPad users in the next few weeks.

You can blame both Google and Apple for the old widget’s failure. Google should have created a more robust widget from the get-go. But Apple imposes severe restrictions on widgets by mandating them to be non-interactive. The new Gmail widget will give you a better preview of what’s in your inbox, although you still won’t be able to archive an email from your home screen.

Recently, Google added Picture-in-Picture (PiP) to Meet to help with multitasking, making it easy for users to switch between apps on their iPhone or iPad while attending meetings. Google will now be adding PiP support to the Gmail app for iOS in the next few weeks.

Additionally, Google Sheets will gain support for keyboard shortcuts on the iPad. Shortcuts will also work with Bluetooth and Magic Keyboards. You can view the available shortcuts by holding down the command key.

Do you think Google’s new updates will help boost your productivity? Let us know in the comments below.

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