8 Third-Party Home Screen Widgets That You Can Try Out Now on iOS 14

PC_tech · Aug 5, 2020

Matsku said:
Found the reason!

What was the reason? They aren't showing up for me either.

quietstormSD · Aug 5, 2020

Man I hope deva just don’t create widgets for home screens just because they can. It’ll be like Android widgets which are mostly ugly and useless.

insomniac86 · Aug 5, 2020

tgwaste said:
I need a small widget that shows next event, stock price and weather in one widget because apple LOVES wasting vast amounts of screen space.

The "Up Next" widget in iOS 13 would show you your next reminder, your next calendar event and your next alarm.
And now we have the new "Up Next" widget in iOS 14 which shows you.... wait for it, ONLY your next Calendar appointment. Ermm.. wow that's an upgrade....

Mr. Brightside · Aug 5, 2020

Hi everyone, replying to questions about Parcel (I am the developer).

Akrapovic said:
I've got the Parcel one (fantastic app), although the Widget isn't showing up for me. I assume it's meant to be listed in with the other Apple widgets?

The new widget in Parcel requires iOS 14 beta 4 which is currently available for developers only. Hopefully there will be a public beta today.

M115CLE said:
Can you link the parcel app to your delivery accounts like DPD, UPS, Royal Mail etc so it auto populates the Parcel App or do you have to manually input the tracking number every time?

You can set up email forwarding of those emails to your personal "Parcel Email" address to achieve that (https://parcelapp.net/parcel-email.html).

klooney · Aug 6, 2020

Is there a curated list of apps that are available in testflight? This is a good list but I'm sure there are many more out there that are experimenting with the new widget interface.

Akrapovic · Aug 6, 2020

Mr. Brightside said:
Hi everyone, replying to questions about Parcel (I am the developer).

The new widget in Parcel requires iOS 14 beta 4 which is currently available for developers only. Hopefully there will be a public beta today.

You can set up email forwarding of those emails to your personal "Parcel Email" address to achieve that (https://parcelapp.net/parcel-email.html).

Ah thank you Mr Brightside. Appreciated!

roland.g · Aug 6, 2020

I thought widgets within the home screens instead of on a separate screen was awesome and couldn't wait for Omnifocus and Alarm.com and apps like those to bring their widgets to the widget library that can go into stacks, etc. Then after using iOS 14 for about a week, I realized that unlike the widget screen widgets, these are dumb widgets that only provide occasionally updated information and really don't provide interaction. The Music App widget is beyond useless. It just shows you recently played content that you played from Apple Music without actually including albums, songs, etc. that you may have played recently that reside on your device BECAUSE ONCE AGAIN JUST LIKE THE APPLE TV APPLE ONLY CARES ABOUT GIVING YOU ACCESS AND EASE OF USE WITH STREAMED CONTENT AND NOT OWNED/LOCAL CONTENT. Not to mention, unlike the control center overlay, there is no control of music that is actually playing or information as to the current track within this widget.

It seems that widgets may be the least useful iOS 14 feature.

danuff · Aug 6, 2020

I’m a developer. How do you make widgets available for testing via TestFlight?

spinedoc77 · Aug 7, 2020

What a shame, they all have that overly large font and lack of functionality because everyone is afraid of putting small text/elements into a widget. Widgets are definitely getting dumber. I can only pray that the legacy widgets that I use that have more dense and useful information/functionality stay around.
[automerge]1596833925[/automerge]

ipedro said:
Yes, they’re allowing them but app developers have to pick either one. Apple built a special area for these widgets that are grouped together below the new widgets.

That's good news seeing how dumbed down the new widgets are.

mariusignorello · Aug 19, 2020

danuff said:
I’m a developer. How do you make widgets available for testing via TestFlight?

Not sure if you’ve figured it out already as this is an old thread, but anyways...

I think it has to be complied with your app in Xcode. Your TestFlight build would automatically include the widget.

Adding a Widget Extension to your app:

Creating a widget extension | Apple Developer Documentation

Display your app’s content in a convenient, informative widget on various devices.

developer.apple.com

AZhappyjack · Sep 5, 2020