Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Dashboard Widgets Coming to iPhone?
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
...and the Dashcode coming with the Leopard XCode dev tools is very cool. It should make developing widgets easier for the masses. This would be a great approach for Apple to take. It still isn't as good as a full SDK, but it's a great start. I hope it's true!!
--DotComCTO
--DotComCTO
Wow this could really be fantastic. Creating your own widgets with webclip and then syncing to iPhone!? Horray for great ideas.
Apples download page, http://www.apple.com/downloads/, always had a link to "Dashboard Widgets" however right before the iPhone launch the wording on the links was changed to "Widgets" dropping "Dashboard" - while the page to download the widgets still references them as "Dashboard Widgets" as do promotional banners for developers etc the download home page does not.
Interesting....
Interesting....
Let's not forget that you are allowed to use Objective-C in Dashboard Widgets. This either means that such widgets won't work on the iPhone or a new version of Xcode will be coming out that includes cross compiling to the iPhone.
I think this might put a kink in the idea of widgets on the iPhone.
I think this might put a kink in the idea of widgets on the iPhone.
^ a new version of Xcode (version 3.0) is shipping along with Leopard. This will also use Objective-C 2.0. So there is hope still possibly. I truely belive allowing full OS X desktop class widgets to work with iPhone would satisfy most people and make thier iphone user experience that much better. Further clue to a Widget app drop could be two points:
(i) i remember when the iphone filesystem was cracked in the first firmware, they noted reference to widget.apple.com or something to that effect
(ii) the recent 1.1.1 update has changed the calcualtor calender icon. This could be due to similarities the old icon may have had with the standard widgets icon in OS X (assuming of course this would be the same one to be used on iphone if ported over).
(i) i remember when the iphone filesystem was cracked in the first firmware, they noted reference to widget.apple.com or something to that effect
(ii) the recent 1.1.1 update has changed the calcualtor calender icon. This could be due to similarities the old icon may have had with the standard widgets icon in OS X (assuming of course this would be the same one to be used on iphone if ported over).
someone fill me in...
As I haven't purchased a new mac yet (had a G4 a long time ago...) and am still running a Dell laptop, I don't know the details of the architecture of widgets.
They are similar to Yahoos / Vista "widgets", i.e., Javascript/html right?
On OSX, is there like a WebKit-based app layer that runs these widgets?
Someone above said Obj-C can be used also? Whether or not that'll translate over to the iphone, can all of these widgets be used without connecting to the net? I obviously know they won't be updated until connected, but where are they stored, e.g. in a 'cache' somewhere?
As I haven't purchased a new mac yet (had a G4 a long time ago...) and am still running a Dell laptop, I don't know the details of the architecture of widgets.
They are similar to Yahoos / Vista "widgets", i.e., Javascript/html right?
On OSX, is there like a WebKit-based app layer that runs these widgets?
Someone above said Obj-C can be used also? Whether or not that'll translate over to the iphone, can all of these widgets be used without connecting to the net? I obviously know they won't be updated until connected, but where are they stored, e.g. in a 'cache' somewhere?
Here is Apples promo site for Dashboard: http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/dashboard/
Yahoo and Vista Widgets are basically the same thing only they can not be run on a Mac, they use slightly different coding.
They run in Dashboard (check out the link above)
They are stored on a Mac as a self contained folder, the same way Apps are (an application is saved in a folder with the extension of .app, which makes the folder into a clickable icon, same with a widget only different extension and it opens the file in Dashboard instead of running an application). The code in them will call out to the net or the computer depending on what info they need - the address book widget uses the computers Address Book database file for example.
The object-c would have to be re-compiled to run on the phones processor (unless apple uses a striped down version of Rosetta - http://www.apple.com/rosetta/ - that can run on the phone...).
the only problem with this i have is that the current os-x widgets aren't iphone formatted.
look at the stocks & weather widget on the iphone, they're both iphone formatted, vertical layout.
now look at how many widgets are not in this iphone layout, pretty much any of them. sure many of them would work in horizontal mode...
...but it's still better to have them in a iphone version, that works in the screen resolution and format/ layout.
what do you think?
look at the stocks & weather widget on the iphone, they're both iphone formatted, vertical layout.
now look at how many widgets are not in this iphone layout, pretty much any of them. sure many of them would work in horizontal mode...
...but it's still better to have them in a iphone version, that works in the screen resolution and format/ layout.
what do you think?
also in that regard.
i really don't understand why the stock & weather widget on the iphone come from yahoo. they're identical to the os-x widgets, yet there's the yahoo icon on the bottom.
what led apple to do this? why couldn't they simply adjusted the apple own os-x widget versions for the iphone?
i really don't understand why the stock & weather widget on the iphone come from yahoo. they're identical to the os-x widgets, yet there's the yahoo icon on the bottom.
what led apple to do this? why couldn't they simply adjusted the apple own os-x widget versions for the iphone?
Nothing is awesome yet, its not like Apple has said widgets are coming...
What is the access point?
My main question is how would you expect to access them from the iPhone UI? Right now there is only space for three more icons.
If I had a guess there are two things Apple is trying to figure about before releasing this.
The first is the core access side of things. Not syncronization, that's easy.
The second is below. How do you get the formatting right. Users will be annoyed othwerise.
My main question is how would you expect to access them from the iPhone UI? Right now there is only space for three more icons.
If I had a guess there are two things Apple is trying to figure about before releasing this.
The first is the core access side of things. Not syncronization, that's easy.
The second is below. How do you get the formatting right. Users will be annoyed othwerise.
Streaming Music on iPhone?
The ability to install widgets might open up the possibility of listening to streaming radio on the iPhone via something like this widget.
The ability to install widgets might open up the possibility of listening to streaming radio on the iPhone via something like this widget.