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Home Screen Widget 'Blocks' Imagined in New iOS Concept

I really like the idea. Nothing changes if you like iOS the way it is, but have the option for more.

I don't like how it looks with the little icons, but the page that had 4 large icons only looked great.
 
Kid Vorpal said:
This looks needlessly complicated. Not sure what this would add to the user experience.
Click to expand...

Complicated? As opposed to a screen full of tiny, identical blocks? The only thing that makes this look messy is the rainbow vomit of some of Apple's current icons. They are like a demo for how not to use gradients.

What does this add to the user experience? The same thing finally adding a control center did. The aim is always less clicks, so not having to click an icon for the weather, or open a Web page for news feeds, or stock tickers etc. etc. is an improvement.

Plus, you wouldn't have to use it if you prefer to sit looking at a page of static icons that hasn't improved since the device was launched.
 
Amazing Iceman said:
Well, with this concept, the user is able to decide how to lay out icons and widgets any way he/she wants to.
A single widget page may not be enough for many users, and having two separate sections (one for icons and another one for widgets) would take away simplicity.
Click to expand...

*EDITED after watching video in story, comment no longer relevant*

I agree though - it likely wouldn't be enough for some. But currently, iOS allows ZERO home screen widgets so.....baby steps perhaps.
 
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I think this is a really elegant solution. Like a lot of the "power" in iOS, its out of the way, so you don't change anything without intentionality. I like that you can "peek" into it without changing your icon layout. And if you choose to set it to be a fixed widget, odds are you're going to keep your layout that way, so bumping the icons to the next page really isn't that big a deal because it'll realistically only happen the first time.

I wouldn't be surprised to find out this guy got hired by Apple at some point. They may not implement it exactly this way, but this is frequently how new features, like Notification Center or the notification bar, get implemented. Someone comes up with a pretty good solution, Apple brings them in, refines the idea, and then rolls it out.
 
Might be nice for weather and music but I don't think I'd get much use of it outside of that. I had widgets on my android device and never used them so why would I now?

I do, however, like the concept of just pinching an app larger to create a widget. Much more user friendly than Android where you have to go into a different menu, find the app you want, select the widget version you want, and then drop it into an open space you made specifically for it. More often than not the space was made slightly the wrong size which means repeating the process. The whole bit is a nightmare.
 
ArcaneDevice said:
Complicated? As opposed to a screen full of tiny, identical blocks? The only thing that makes this look messy is the rainbow vomit of some of Apple's current icons.

What does this add to the user experience? The same thing finally adding a control center did. The aim is always less clicks, so not having to click an icon for the weather, or open a Web page for news feeds, or stock tickers etc. etc. is an improvement.

Plus, you wouldn't have to use it if you prefer to sit looking at a page of static icons that hasn't improved since the device was launched.
Click to expand...

"Tiny".....

Exaggeration.

The aim of iOS is focus on the apps that developers spend countless hours creating and designing. iOS will never be the "all encompassing" OS. You're looking for a change in philosophy that won't come. If want a device where the focus is on the in-app experience, iOS is it. If you want an OS that attempts to take care of everything without entering said apps, Android is for you.

Control Center doesn't mess with Apple's philosophy because the "settings" app isn't an experience driven app. I could see Apple adding a widgets page for things like weather, stocks, top headlines etc....but even then they mess with the amazing designs of apps like Yahoo Weather. Sometimes I open the app not to check the weather but to see what cool pic will show up as the background.

Apple is not about to sacrifice the in-app experience just to shave one extra tap off someone's work flow. If they do, I'll be shocked.
 
tobefirst said:
Curious, do you have a custom wallpaper or are you using the stock one that came on the phone when you first started it up?
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Custom. A pleasant, passive image that blends into the background and provides my desired color theme to iOS 7's translucent controls. Do I ever stare at my custom background or unlock my phone specifically to look at it? No. Never. When I actually want to look at photos or other images, I launch the app which contains them.

That said, I am specifically talking about the home screen. The lock screen is different. It shows summary info a person might frequently want to see with minimal effort, like the time, date, or even a custom photo.

But the home screen is not meant to be looked at any longer than it takes to find the app you need to launch to do what you need to do. You don't even unlock your phone to reveal the home screen except for the explicit purpose of finding and launching an app.

Widgets simply do not belong in an app launcher, aka the home screen. Widgets belong on the lock screen and/or in a special widgets app launched by tapping an app icon on the home screen or some special global gesture like control panel has.
 
I like it. I think if they have half and whole width options (and only if you actually want a widget) then it works. I'd happily accept this as a new feature in iOS 8.
 
Widgets are one thing that I would miss once I switch back to iphone this fall. It's very handy feature that is used for more than showing weather in bigger size.
 
redscull said:
Custom. A pleasant, passive image that blends into the background and provides my desired color theme to iOS 7's translucent controls. Do I ever stare at my custom background or unlock my phone specifically to look at it? No. Never. When I actually want to look at photos or other images, I launch the app which contains them.

That said, I am specifically talking about the home screen. The lock screen is different. It shows summary info a person might frequently want to see with minimal effort, like the time, date, or even a custom photo.

But the home screen is not meant to be looked at any longer than it takes to find the app you need to launch to do what you need to do. You don't even unlock your phone to reveal the home screen except for the explicit purpose of finding and launching an app.

Widgets simply do not belong in an app launcher, aka the home screen. Widgets belong on the lock screen and/or in a special widgets app launched by tapping an app icon on the home screen or some special global gesture like control panel has.
Click to expand...

Couldn't agree more. Honestly, I think Apple has thought about this - with the empty page to the left of the home screen.....think its highly likely we see SOMETHING there in iOS 8.
 
Amazing Iceman said:
Well, with this concept, the user is able to decide how to lay out icons and widgets any way he/she wants to.
A single widget page may not be enough for many users, and having two separate sections (one for icons and another one for widgets) would take away simplicity.
Click to expand...

I think that's the most important thing all the naysayers are overlooking. Personal choice. It's optional. If someone likes their screen filled with static icons, more power to them. For some one that wants widgets that offer information at a glance the option should be there. No two users are the same. Allowing someone to have the ability to customize their personal phone to their liking in no way affects any other user. I don't see a downside.

I hope they get something like this for the iPad as well.

Edit: I've read through a lot of comments in this thread and have yet to find a valid argument against widgets.
 
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I want nothing on my home screen but my 4 main apps at the bottom. I want to hide everything else and launch through search. This is way quicker than scrolling through pages and folders.
 
Great idea. The people who want widgets/live tiles can finally have them and the people who don't can have the same home screen experience as before.
 
I'll be honest, just being able to let an app icon take up the space of 4 would be a great addition. Letting it be widget-like would be a bonus.

I'm a bit shocked almost nothing has changed related to the simple grid pattern of apps since the iPhone first appeared. Of course...I still hate the miserable GUI of iOS7...so what I say is meaningless :) Now, let me go click on that white area of screen that is a button...maybe.
 
69Mustang said:
I think that's the most important thing all the naysayers are overlooking. Personal choice. It's optional. If someone likes their screen filled with static icons, more power to them. For some on that wants widgets that offer information at a glance the option should be there. No two users are the same. Allowing someone to have the ability to customize their personal phone to their liking in no way affects any other user. I don't see a downside.

I hope they get something like this for the iPad as well.
Click to expand...

Ok - then as long as I have the OPTION to add widgets to the page to the left of the main home screen, I'm in.
 
I like this a lot.

I don't understand why Apple does't embrace more often ideas from outside their own office. Take for example features like Alfred and Hazel, two small apps, not for your iPhone but for Maverick, both cheap but both "life"-changing, the way how one is dealing with his desktop...

With Alfred I don't use buttons any longer, never again. I just type in what I need and it pops up the program, or even better specific pages on the website can be openend with writing down just two letters... for example, I used to open a webbrowser then searched for the page of the cinema which is located downtown in my city (Amsterdam The Netherlands). Sometimes I don't have the bookmark listed, simply because I forgot. Then I need to see google, searching for that cinemapage and then, quite often, search for the current day what the cinema is offering... with Alfred I can punt in the address of the specific page and if the Cinema I'm looking for is called Rialto then typing Ri is enough, it opens Safari for me and jumps to that page straight away. But even more, Alfred is open source as for small free of cost add ons people making for Alfred world wide, when I like to know if a movie is ok I just open Alfred with one button on my keyboard, type the letter m (for movie) followed by title of the movie, in a sec it shows me imdb link, what score it gets, the link to a trailer online on youtube, what Rotten Tomatoes has to say etc etc.... all with one click and one letter followed by the title of the movie....

Or what about hazel? It's an utility that does all kinds of automatic tasks in the background, I hate to see stuff on my desktop, with three monitors attached to my Mac Pro I want a clean desktop.... so Hazel does this for me, it looks at all the files on the desktop and put them in the right folders, documents in documents, screenshots in screenshots folder, etc etc. If I download a specific torrent file for a document on one computer then hazel recognize the file as a torrent file and transports it automatically to a specific folder in dropbox where our server is reading from every second, when it discovers a torrent file it starts downloading it automatically. In this way I can even download (legal) torrent stuff using my iPad when I'm abroad in a foreign country for business.
I can mention more stuff that would be great to see this integrated in Apple's core OS, like Dropzone which I using a lot when transferring files to customers. Just drag and drop files on the dropzone icon which appears automatically from the right when dragging your files to that area, drop it and it will zip all the files upload it automatically to an FTP server online and when done gives a signal and past the link in your clipboard. The only think I need to do is to start up my e-mail client with a press of a button (Alfred) then write down the message and copy past the link in the message and press send.

I can go on for hours, but the main thing is, Apple's OS as well as Apple's iOS is great but would be so much greater when Apple would adopt several small companies their product. It would be a big add on.
 
jrswizzle said:
The aim of iOS is focus on the apps that developers spend countless hours creating and designing.

...

Apple is not about to sacrifice the in-app experience just to shave one extra tap off someone's work flow. If they do, I'll be shocked.
Click to expand...

Then you have no idea about UI design or a memory of exactly how often Apple have done exactly that throughout their interface history.

Maybe Apple should roll back on folders too? After all we wouldn't want people to be able to bury all those apps that many find useless. :rolleyes:

Here's another newsflash, a widget is not only evidence of the app in your device but a huge billboard button to launch it. Whether you want to see in-app or not the result is the same. You already use it.
 
sualpine said:
The market disagrees with you.
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Which market?

The phoney analyst market that pull #s out of their collective you know what and make up market share?

Or the real market? (which you might want to check today and Apple's value).
 
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