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I'm not really liking the widgets, and I found them almost useless on the home screen as well. Its basically just a shortcut to the app and don't add much. Why for exemple, the smallest battery widget on the iPhone don't show the battery %? You have to chose the bigger ones to show the % and it just takes a huge amount of space if you add it to the home screen.

The music app don't have any controls, just your recent album you listening... They also remove the phone widget that was very useful for calling our contacts quickly and that was one of the most convenient widget for me. The only widgets I found useful are the weather and notes, everything else I don't see the point to add them on the home screen when you can just swipe left to show them when needed.
 
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Did apple give us a valid reason to why they didn't make widgets interactive?
 
They finally improved the small widget for Reminders in the most recent beta of 14.2. If you have multiple items due for a given day, it will now display them in the small widget when before it would only show one item and a bunch of empty space. On my 2020 SE it shows up to three items. I attached an image of what it displayed before versus the updated version. I am very happy about this improvement
 

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Did apple give us a valid reason to why they didn't make widgets interactive?

My guess is Apple views widgets as being there for quick glances of information. They are not intended to be miniature apps. So it’s more of a philosophical limitation, rather than a technical one.
 
My guess is Apple views widgets as being there for quick glances of information. They are not intended to be miniature apps. So it’s more of a philosophical limitation, rather than a technical one.
It sounds like they might have adjusted their thinking on that with the new widgets. At the same time with the widgets updating less regularly/reliably it seems that even the informational aspect of them has been somewhat undermined (at least so far).
 
They finally improved the small widget for Reminders in the most recent beta of 14.2. If you have multiple items due for a given day, it will now display them in the small widget when before it would only show one item and a bunch of empty space. On my 2020 SE it shows up to three items. I attached an image of what it displayed before versus the updated version. I am very happy about this improvement

That is a big improvement although the smallest calendar widget remains limited to today only right? Also the current limitation in the calendar middle and bigger sized widgets also lacks some smart way of doing things to use all the space to e.g. show today, tomorrow and the next day in the middle sized widget (in 2 columns). Also the fact to show in the biggest size widget days that don't have any appointments feel pointless to me.

Therefore I went to look for third party calendar widget that can do a lot more in that respect such as DayHub (can show 3 days in middle sized widget in two columns), SimpleCal (biggest size widget).

I also love the additional AccuWeather in the Fantastical widget that however has again that it shows e.g. the current day with no appointments. Also things like a button to add (Calendar 366) or search appointments (FirstSeed Calendar) is really handy (although that one lacks a proper days ahead widget list). It's also pretty cool the DayHub and Widget Wizard for example have options to select e.g. an event calendar only and then show e.g. music releases for the upcoming weeks/months.
 
That is a big improvement although the smallest calendar widget remains limited to today only right? Also the current limitation in the calendar middle and bigger sized widgets also lacks some smart way of doing things to use all the space to e.g. show today, tomorrow and the next day in the middle sized widget (in 2 columns). Also the fact to show in the biggest size widget days that don't have any appointments feel pointless to me.

Therefore I went to look for third party calendar widget that can do a lot more in that respect such as DayHub (can show 3 days in middle sized widget in two columns), SimpleCal (biggest size widget).

I also love the additional AccuWeather in the Fantastical widget that however has again that it shows e.g. the current day with no appointments. Also things like a button to add (Calendar 366) or search appointments (FirstSeed Calendar) is really handy (although that one lacks a proper days ahead widget list). It's also pretty cool the DayHub and Widget Wizard for example have options to select e.g. an event calendar only and then show e.g. music releases for the upcoming weeks/months.

Thanks for sharing those.
 
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