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Anyone sort of forget widgets?

K

Khaleesi Kendall

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 31, 2020
198
268
I went to go change my wallpaper and then I realized I literally forgot widgets were a thing tbh. I still have my widgets/homescreen set up from the day my iPhone 12 pro max came out lol.

they just feel like a novelty at this point and a forgotten feature I forgot we had lol
 
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I would like to find one that is useful for me.

I wear an Apple Watch, so I don't need a big clock or date widget.
Most of my important "calendar" things are related to work, so I don't need that on my personal iPhone.
I already have a weather complication on my Apple Watch.

What would be useful to an average Joe?
 
BeatCrazy said:
I would like to find one that is useful for me.

I wear an Apple Watch, so I don't need a big clock or date widget.
Most of my important "calendar" things are related to work, so I don't need that on my personal iPhone.
I already have a weather complication on my Apple Watch.

What would be useful to an average Joe?
Click to expand...

The Siri app suggestion widgets (2 instances of the 4x2 medium sized ones) have replaced actual apps on my Home Screen. 80% of the time the app I want is on the screen when I want it.
 
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Been using widgets pretty much daily since they became available back in iOS 8.
 
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I love them, but when I point them out to people who weren’t aware of them or their configurability I’m usually met with, “meh.” So I get why some may not care about them.

I consider myself more tech aware than tech savvy, but man, these devices we are carrying around are capable of doing so much and so many people I know are downright Luddite about taking advantage of it. Whatever, I enjoy it and that’s probably a big reason I’m a part of this community.
 
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I set some up the day it was released but I always forget to check if there are more apps supporting widgets now. Also I came to release, that I don’t really spent much time on my Home Screen so 🤷🏽‍♂️ initial novelty wore off
 
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BeatCrazy said:
I would like to find one that is useful for me.

I wear an Apple Watch, so I don't need a big clock or date widget.
Most of my important "calendar" things are related to work, so I don't need that on my personal iPhone.
I already have a weather complication on my Apple Watch.

What would be useful to an average Joe?
Click to expand...
Yes, owning a watch diminish the usefullness of many widgets.
I thought about that and asked myself: which information I cannot see on my watch at a glance?

1. News. So I put the maxi widgtet of news in the old Today view area.
2. Weather forecast for 5, 6 or 7 days. This I put on my homescreen.
3. And some 3rd party widgets like a: Scriptable (COVID-Infos from my hometown), Buddywatch (well done watch faces), Reddit/Wikipedia (Picture of the day etc) and finally a photo widget (just nice to see).
 
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posguy99 said:
iOS 14 widgets are useless, a waste of screen. Looked at them briefly on launch day and haven't bothered with them afterwards. Today widgets marginally less so, and at least they're out of the way.
Click to expand...

Clearly a lot of people here don’t think they’re useless. Not sure why you can’t just say YOU don’t find them useful and be done with it.
 
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For me that is part of the problem. I am used to some great widgets in Android and finally found a few pre14 ones from 3rd party devs I could put on the Today screen. What we have now has potential but they have a long way to go before they get close to the functionality we expect.
 
I use them a lot and I know people who also use them a lot. I find them incredibly useful and are constantly looking to add more. unfortunately most apps are still not providing us with them which makes our opinions limited. I also wish they were more interactive when on the Home Screen.
 
I haven't forgotten them. I just no longer play around with them as much because I have found a setup which works for me. In fact, I am down to 1 Home Screen now compromising of 2 Siri shortcut widgets and 1 stack of 5 widgets. Swipe right to access App Library. Working great for me so far.
 
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On the widget screen:
- Usage to monitor my upload / download speed when needed
- Smart Life to quickly turn on and off my smart home lights

On the home screen:
- Big clock for better quick look
- Battery to monitor connected devices
- Non smart stack: Calendar for today’s schedule, reminders list and weather to check before heading out
- Shortcuts: Quick setting alarm, battery saver in a pinch, charging mode to have Siri tells me to unplug when battery reached 80%, and a script to enter my user ID on my home network ISP website and then resets the service when something went wrong

So yeah, it is useful for me, maybe not for others.
 
I have a total of three I use on multiple pages on my iPhone - Calendar and Weather on the Home page (a misnomer, because few have the button control to take us to that default start page anymore. But I digress). And Pedometer+ on another page.
I do have one other active widget (Rainviewer), but I leave that on the Today Screen, as I don't use it as often.

But the others? Meh. I'm not seeing a lot of them I 'must have' at a glimpse, and taking up screen real estate.

And, if it makes people feel better, I don't use widgets all that much on my cheapo Android tablet, either.
OS Ambidextrous, but equally indifferent.
 
They need a widgets category in the App Store, its so hard to find apps that support widgets and even when they update, if you dont read the notes then nothing tells you a widget has been added - they should add a sectio in the widget area that shows newly added and recommended widgets maybe
 
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