At least, I think it's a great idea. Many people want widgets on the home screen. Apple does not. It's not hard to see why. Apple is all about clean simple design, and their grid of icons on the home screen is just that. Adding widgets would mess up that cleanliness in their minds, and god forbid the location of those widgets be customizable! But I think I found a way to make widgets work.
It's simple. For all Apple apps that could have widgets (Weather, Stocks, etc.), you would have two options in settings to choose from. One would be to have apps launch as normal. A second option would be my idea for widgets. When you click the app's icon, a window slides down exactly in the same way it does when you open a folder. However, instead of showing more apps in that space, like a folder does, you'd have your widget. It would have basic information, and a button to press if you wanted to launch the full app. To exit the widget, you tap the icon again or you tap somewhere else on the screen, just like with folders.
Obviously the biggest issue would be some people would want pressing the icon to open a widget, and others would want it to just launch the app. That's why I said there should be an option in settings to choose. And if you go with the widget option, there will be a button in the widget to open the app.
I think this is a good compromise. I don't think Apple wants to go with full on widgets, but I think they want a home screen to offer more information. This would allow people to access basic information in apps without having to leave their homescreen. Obviously its not a 100% true widget, because you still have to tap a button to see the information, but I think this is a very workable compromise and quite frankly, I think it would look great. I would very much appreciate being able to tap the Weather icon and have a folder-like window slide down showing me the high and low for the next few days without launching the app, and then tapping the icon again to exit the widget.
Oh and one other small note: opening a widget would not put the app in your multitasking tray.
It's simple. For all Apple apps that could have widgets (Weather, Stocks, etc.), you would have two options in settings to choose from. One would be to have apps launch as normal. A second option would be my idea for widgets. When you click the app's icon, a window slides down exactly in the same way it does when you open a folder. However, instead of showing more apps in that space, like a folder does, you'd have your widget. It would have basic information, and a button to press if you wanted to launch the full app. To exit the widget, you tap the icon again or you tap somewhere else on the screen, just like with folders.
Obviously the biggest issue would be some people would want pressing the icon to open a widget, and others would want it to just launch the app. That's why I said there should be an option in settings to choose. And if you go with the widget option, there will be a button in the widget to open the app.
I think this is a good compromise. I don't think Apple wants to go with full on widgets, but I think they want a home screen to offer more information. This would allow people to access basic information in apps without having to leave their homescreen. Obviously its not a 100% true widget, because you still have to tap a button to see the information, but I think this is a very workable compromise and quite frankly, I think it would look great. I would very much appreciate being able to tap the Weather icon and have a folder-like window slide down showing me the high and low for the next few days without launching the app, and then tapping the icon again to exit the widget.
Oh and one other small note: opening a widget would not put the app in your multitasking tray.
