Widgetable: Besties & Couples

The Widgetable app solves a challenging problem: making someone on the other side of the country feel close, not through chat, but through your phone screen. One widget displays their mood, another counts the kilometers between you, and a third raises a shared pet that you both feed throughout the day.

The concept is captivating. Drawing a doodle and sending it directly to a friend's lock screen, jointly monitoring their sleep patterns, and saying "I miss you" creates a sense of presence without words. The new update added mini-games with shared rankings, and now you can even compete. There are plenty of themes to suit every taste.

Monetization systematically kills the fun. Feeding a pet means ads. Walking it means ads. Most in-game items are either purchased through watching a video or as a separate purchase. A subscription lifts some restrictions, but not all: paying users complain that the terms are almost identical to the free version.

Widgets occasionally freeze and stop displaying up-to-date data. Tech support is slow to respond. The user's coordinates and sleep data are included in the collected data.

Widgetable app features:

• A widget featuring a pet that two people are raising together.
• Displays the distance between users in real time.
• Send drawings and photos directly to a friend's lock screen.
• Collaborative sleep monitoring.
• Mini-games with a shared scoreboard.
• Ads are charged for every interaction with the pet, even in the paid version.
• Widgets become outdated and freeze without warning.
• Coordinates and sleep are among the collected data.