In addition to A/B testing a change to how you add a new contact, Google Contacts is rolling out the ability to see notifications on widgets.
We first saw signs of this capability in late February. Once available, the Individual contact widget will show a badged notification bell icon in the top-right corner. It joins the background image and shortcuts for calling and messaging.
The widget must be set to a portrait rectangle configuration, with the circular or pill variant not compatible.
A prompt explains how you can “see and respond to the latest messages from your contacts.” The set-up process involves granting “Allow notification access,” specifically the “Conversations” and “Notifications” permissions.
It can be used to show missed calls, messages, and “important dates and more.” The latter presumably means birthdays and any other dates you’ve manually added.
This capability basically repcliates Android’s system-level Conversations widget, which was introduced with Android 12 but hasn’t seen any updates since then.
Widget notifications are rolling out with version 4.31 of Google Contacts, but is not yet widely rolled out today.
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