On iOS 15 the way widgets work is absolutely weird, and we lost lots of screen space (12.9 here) as the new layout allows us to see fewer icons.
But you have to think about how the widgets will work both in landscape and portrait. What’s a better way?
Well, I think the old way was better, but also I imagine high-quality designers can design something better than what it is now iPad OS 15.
Why does a widget need to be displayed exactly the same whether the iPad is in portrait or landscape? An app can be designed to adjust between portrait and landscape orientation. I don’t understand why that’s so difficult for a widget.
But thats another problem. Even though its a fixed grid, we CAN’T place widgets wherever we since it’s a permanently sorted grid from Top Left. So placing anything Bottom Right (the most thumb accessible quadrant) requires filling the screen with unnecessary Apps or distracting single-use widgets.
Great point! All of this nonsense to implement the ability to place widgets “anywhere” - except exactly where people would find them most useful.
Square grid with a permanent fixed Apple widget to replace today view. It could be a sleek combined time/weather/calendar Apple widget. I attached a very very rough mockup, but something like this. And it's flexible enough for 4x4 or 6x5! Before the reveal, I was actually expecting them to release something like this, but surprised we got what we got instead.
I believe you can go into system setting under Home Screen and select no Widgets on home screen. And you can also just long press on the Widgets on your Home Screen and remove them. Widgets on iPad OS 15 is no different than Widgets on iPhone. You don’t need to have Widgets on your Home Screen.
Selecting No Widgets does not bring back the tighter grid with more apps that was introduced iPadOS 13.
What would happen to a horizontal widget you placed in the bottom right corner that is 3 x 2 icons in size when you turned into portrait mode? Which 6 icons would it take up? And what would happen if you removed that giant widget you've got pictured or placed that somewhere else?
It would stay in the same position in portrait mode since its a square grid. And the giant widget is permanent/unremovable (Not an attractive proposition, but something’s gotta give. They could make that giant widget very customizable to appease the users)
It does feel like a step backwards because all these active widgets made the iPad feel like an ugly version of Windows Live Tiles.
How do the widgets look when the screen rotates to portrait mode?
The new ipad homescreen is clearly designed to look good with widgets and bad with app icons. This makes me realise that I want all my apps to sport widgets. It used to come with a pretty huge opportunity cost on my iphone, because even the smallest widget takes up the space of 4 app icons. Which made me fairly hesitant to use them last year.
But on my ipad, where it’s 1 widget in place one 1 app, there really is no reason for me to use a normal icon when a widget is available. It just looks nicer, and can also double as additional information at a glance.
This. The layout can be completely different in both orientations to your liking... You could have a widget be in the upper-right corner in portrait mode, but have it be in the upper-left corner in landscape mode (or in the lower-left, or in the middle, etc.)
