There seems to be a fairly low uptake in developers creating widgets for iOS since the update that let us place widgets on our home screens. Is anybody in the know regarding why are developers not jumping to develop them?
As a user of them, it remains disappointing that you can’t really interact with them. I use a few (shopping list, world clock, random photos), but if there was more possible interaction than just ‘open the app’, there might be more creative use cases.
I've done a few widgets for Volum (to easily turn on/off DIY lights and mute speakers: <a href="https://lowtechguys.com/volum" rel="nofollow">https://lowtechguys.com/volum</a>) and for Sub Sol (to see the next private party: <a href="https://subsol.one" rel="nofollow">https://subsol.one</a>)<p>Screenshot here: <a href="https://f.alinpanaitiu.com/mt37aX/Image.png" rel="nofollow">https://f.alinpanaitiu.com/mt37aX/Image.png</a><p>While they're easy to write because of the new SwiftUI APIs, they're indeed very limited.<p>All I am able to do is add buttons which when pressed, they open an URL.<p>I managed to make that URL useful in Volum with a handler that extracts the device id from the URL and toggles the device power. Not always working because the app might not be in sync with the current state of the lights/speakers, as apps are not allowed to do much work in the background.<p>In the Sub Sol case, the URL only navigates to the party that you tapped on in the widget.<p>But because widgets live in a separate extension, completely isolated from your app's code, you can't do anything inside them. Even the rudimentary stuff needs code duplication between the app and the widget extension.<p>The good thing is that it leads to a very small widget extension binary that doesn't hog up memory, and I think that's what Apple wanted in the end. But I would love to have a bit more power so I don't have to open an app for stuff that I do often in 1-3 taps.
Some of the widgets I've used don't automatically update, so I've just had a bad impression and haven't bothered to try more, and don't really see the point in developing them. NetNewsWire's would only update when I opened the app, for example. (I could be holding it wrong, I didn't really investigate the issue.)
I want to say I’m a “power user” on iOS, though that’s debatable, as I am old, and default to “go to your ‘real’ computer for anything non-trivial”.<p>Anyways…discoverability?<p>1. If you are on the normal Home Screen on an iPhone, where is the affordance to even suggest widgets exist? There really isn’t, unless you enter the modal jiggly mode to rearrange apps, where you get a subtle + button to add widgets.<p>2. If you are on the home view and swipe all the way left to get to your “stack” of widgets (which I do use), you get a weeeee little Edit button down at the bottom to add new widgets.<p>3. If you add a new app, is there a universal affordance to know there’s a widget available? Not really.<p>So, for me, I just kinda forget they are there, or at least I am forgetful enough to check if there is new functionality available for me.<p><i>(And if I am missing an obvious affordance, please, make me look dumb here. I’d be glad to learn more.)</i><p>-<p>I will say I am getting more use out of the…oh wow we really are keeping that name…the Dynamic Island with Live Activities feature.<p><a href="https://www.macrumors.com/guide/dynamic-island/" rel="nofollow">https://www.macrumors.com/guide/dynamic-island/</a><p>Barely any Live Activities out there, but that omni-present and slightly animated subview lets me know there are fresh things to interact with.
1. They have limited interactivity, hence cool features are hard or impossible.
2. Many, many people just don't care about them or the limited screen real estate they provide and prefer to use a full screen app.<p>I don't think you can fix 2. by fixing 1. - that is a common topic of discussion that I believe to be pointless, seeing as I very seldom (if ever) used them in Android as well.<p>I have about half of my iPad's home screen taken up with weather and calendar widgets, and that is about the most extensive use I make of them. On the iPhone I only use a few on the lock screen (for similar purposes).
I am curious, what apps are you using that you wish had widgets but don't?<p>Personally I find that the apps I want widgets for, have them. Personal Finance (Copilot), Food Tracking (LifeSum), Task Tracking (Things and TickTick), plus the built in ones cover all my use cases.<p>I also just went and looked to see what other apps I have installed that have one and I see other ones like Twitch, Youtube, Ritual, Reddit, Mela.<p>I think most apps just don't need widgets, really just things that I want to have a quick glance to and the vast majority of my apps don't fall in that category.<p>Edit: To clarify, I have yet to go looking for a widget for a specific app had not find one that does what I want.
The two iOS widgets that I find the most usable and also provide quite a lot of utility are the MyRadar (weather) and Kasa (smart home) widgets.<p>I can get most weather information I need from the MyRadar widget; rarely do I need to open the app. If I do, it’s mostly to check weather in other areas like my parent’s home during hurricane season.<p>Likewise with the Kasa widget. The only time I open the app these days is to setup a new device or an automation/scene.<p>Useful widgets exist, but I imagine their use cases are fairly limited to mostly trivial things. For more complex applications, it probably simply isn’t worth the dev time to create and maintain a widget.
I had a similar discussion with a friend lately.<p>From analytics (mine [0] and friends) on various iOS apps, around 3-8% of active users use the widget.<p>So this answers the question partially = only a small percent of people use widgets. Hence low priority.<p>iOS widget use depends on the app category also. E.g<p>- productivity apps have higher widget usage because they have power users, and often users already think in workflows & quick access<p>- more general users don't care or don't know about widgets at all<p>That being said, regardless of the category, I always encourage companies to add it. Why?<p>- the cost is much lower than they usually think<p>- improves retention<p>- higher potential of forming a habit<p>[0] - neuracache.com
Part of it might be that in a world of react native and other such technologies, apps simply aren’t able to provide them, or it’s too technically challenging to. There are some fairly significant restrictions that are hard for a non-native app to comply with.<p>And it turns out nobody really cares. Everyone’s used to opening the app when they need anything. And I say this with 5 widgets covering my only Home Screen - not bashing them in any way.
I don’t see it emphasized here, but Apple’s photos widget is great.<p>I keep a four-icon sized one in the top right of my home screen. It regularly delivers special photos and ”Memories” that I really like.<p>Other than that, widgets seem like Apple Watch complications. Good if set up just right, but fidgety to configure to taste and lacking in depth.
It’s not intuitive enough to add widgets, most people do not start checking if this new app they downloaded has widgets. If apple wanted them to be popular, they’d have 1 widget that isn’t removable but rotates(smart widgets) through widgets offered by apps and have the user easily remove the crap ones.
In our case (news related app) there's simply no demand for it that we've seen. Our users seem to value push notifications more. I think apps that are more about calendaring or lists of things probably have more of a reason to use home widgets.
I don't use iOS and didn't know they were now available, but Android's approximately 'always' had them, and how many users do you see using them?<p>I have a feeling they used to be more popular, maybe around 4.0 when people seemed more into arguing about iOS vs Android like it mattered what other people used, but I don't use any or see people use any now. (Although installing Lineage on my new-to-me phone it came with a clock widget by default, which I <i>might</i> keep.)<p>So I would guess the developers of major apps have metrics on how few use them on their Android version, and don't see the point/it's lower priority than whatever else they're doing.
everyone i know including myself hates widgets, i even disabled notification badgets for a long time because anything that calls for attention and stress on my homescreen is kind of toxic, the onlything useful in this direction is the clalender app icon and weather app icon reflecting the real current date and weather and that is allready possible without widgets that need to take up more space to be useful anyways and at that point i can just open the app.
An app that makes a great use of the widgets in iOS is Blinq, a digital business card app [0].<p>I find it super handy to be able to access the contact QR code without fiddling with lock screens and finding the app.<p>[0] <a href="https://blinq.me/" rel="nofollow">https://blinq.me/</a>
Widgets is something everybody thinks they need and is great, but when it’s there it turns out it kind of is a solution with not too many problems.<p>Apple tried it (dashboard), Microsoft tried it, Google tried it, Apple tried again. At least the first attempt gave us the canvas element.
Personally, I’ve never liked widgets. Not on Windows Vista, not on KDE, not on iPhone. They create clutter. If I want to interact with an app, I’ll just open the app. So maybe I’m not alone in that and there isn’t really a demand for widgets among normal iPhone users.
I really enjoyed how widgets were handled on a separate page previously. Back then I had lots of more widgets available but the whole re-working of the widget system has been a bit of a letdown for Apple itself too, or so I would think...
iOS widgets are a complement to existing apps, and most apps that stand to benefit from them <i>do</i> already have widgets.<p>There are even dedicated custom Widget apps like _David Smith’s WidgetSmith which does fairly well for itself once people realized they could have a more unique Home Screen with custom widgets.<p>iOS Widgets just don’t do a whole lot right now. The current widget API basically skewed away from Dashboard-style widgets and made them more like the Windows 8 Tiles but better: fancy app icons that can display dynamically changing information with some deep-linking capabilities; with the non-dynamic fallback being to just use the App’s existing icon.
I never really liked widgets on Android either, so I'm not in a hurry to have them on iOS. And the Apple Watch complications allow me to have quick access to some data that I want to have immediately at hand (like the weather).
They lack interactivity, update inconsistently (lets say if you're in battery saving mode) and most users across the platform haven' t been trained to use them
IMHO push notifications (which appear when you need them or when they are most relevant) are almost always better for UX than widgets (which take up space at all times).