Spotify Developing iOS 14 Widgets in Latest Beta

[jinnj]

How so? Having had Android widgets were useless battery hogs. These iOS widgets are actually useful. I don't need a media player on my home screen. I need to know what song I was listening to and have quick access to new podcasts.

Agreed, especially since the media controls are easily available from the control center (down swipe to reveal).

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

It’s the opposite to me.

Google had more than 10 year lead with features like widgets, and look where they have progressed during this time. Absolutely nowhere.

It’s pretty representative of everything google does. Core idea shows promise, but there’s no marketing, no guidelines, zero QC, just the Wild West where users and developers are left to sink and swim on their own. It’s just there.

Fast forward to today, the feature is still there on android, but there’s virtually zero fanfare. If google doesn’t care for it, why should users?

Apple’s implementation is more limited but prettier and the user base goes wild, because as it turns out, you need constraints and guidelines to shape behaviour and help ensure a better user experience for everyone.

App clips vs instant apps is another example of how Apple using this feature to seed the ground for something bigger (ie: AR glasses) vs google which just released it as a standalone feature, and the lacklustre adoption and support it has gotten since then is hardly surprising.

That’s why I am an iOS user. Not because I care about who did it first, but because I know that Apple will eventually implement and support it better.

Why would Android have fanfare for a feature it's had for 10 years?

 

[kc9hzn]

Even the Apple Music widget doesn’t have this feature. It’s basically self sabotage for no reason. I’m sure it’ll be added at some point it’s a minor inconvenience.

No, you’re forgetting the already existing (ie has since iOS 4, but the exact implementation has changed over the years) system play/pause/ff/rewind commands. While they’re maybe not as convenient as having them right on the home screen if you happen to be in the home screen, they’re just one swipe away in Control Center or Notification Center whether you’re on the home screen or in another app. And if you’re on the lock screen, it’s front and center.

I don’t really get sticking music controls on the home screen if they happen to be one swipe away everywhere. It’s not like I spend a bunch of time just staring at the home screen, and you’ve got the issue of swiping up to try to find them only to realize they’re on a different page of the home screen.

As for Android’s implementation, I wonder how many Android users really use widgets, least of all widgets that aren’t part of the stock UI? And not all launchers support widgets, I know for a fact that the Google stock TV launcher doesn’t support them, as that’s the UI I use on my one Android device. For some reason, I get the suspicion that most Android users don’t really understand how the home screen works. (People have this stereotype of Android users as tech savvy people who’ll modify every aspect of their system, but most of the ones I’ve met have an Android phone because it’s cheaper, and they don’t really get why you’d want a smartphone except maybe for the camera/email/maybe web browser or social media apps.)

 

[Techwatcher]

No, you’re forgetting the already existing (ie has since iOS 4, but the exact implementation has changed over the years) system play/pause/ff/rewind commands. While they’re maybe not as convenient as having them right on the home screen if you happen to be in the home screen, they’re just one swipe away in Control Center or Notification Center whether you’re on the home screen or in another app. And if you’re on the lock screen, it’s front and center.

I don’t really get sticking music controls on the home screen if they happen to be one swipe away everywhere. It’s not like I spend a bunch of time just staring at the home screen, and you’ve got the issue of swiping up to try to find them only to realize they’re on a different page of the home screen.

As for Android’s implementation, I wonder how many Android users really use widgets, least of all widgets that aren’t part of the stock UI? And not all launchers support widgets, I know for a fact that the Google stock TV launcher doesn’t support them, as that’s the UI I use on my one Android device. For some reason, I get the suspicion that most Android users don’t really understand how the home screen works. (People have this stereotype of Android users as tech savvy people who’ll modify every aspect of their system, but most of the ones I’ve met have an Android phone because it’s cheaper, and they don’t really get why you’d want a smartphone except maybe for the camera/email/maybe web browser or social media apps.)

Yeah it makes no sense why they make these decisions when they're elsewhere on the OS anyway.

 

[LeadingHeat]

sorry, I didn’t realise you were being forced to use this?

I’m not, don’t be thick. But if they open up the API to developers to be ABLE to deliver high refresh rate, moving, interactive widgets that will drain my battery. This will be bad if I want to use any widgets at all.

Now if the developers (or Apple I guess in settings) include a toggle to do a view only widget or allow interactive widgets, that’s something I could get on board with. More customization but not at the expense of those who don’t need it.