made an "app" which allows creation of shortcut to a specific image in the gallery using its thumbnail as shortcut icon.
the manifest declares only 1 activity and has no layout. it only gets called by the system when the user wants to create an image shortcut. the activity immediately launches an ACTION_PICK intent on Media.EXTERNAL_CONTENT_URI.
the returned result is assumed to be an image for which the title and thumbnail are obtained and returned to the homescreen. when the shortcut is clicked, the ACTION_VIEW intent is launched on the content uri of the picked image.

here's the source
http://android.arnodenhond.com/components/image-shortcut

any idea why shortcut feature wasn't included as by default in the gallery app?