HN Explorer

Ask HN: What Happened to iOS Widgets?

54 points by iamsanteri ↗ HN
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?

64 comments

[ 6.2 ms ] story [ 78.9 ms ] thread
nvr219
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.
Bluecobra
Hey Bart! Remember Windows Vista widgets? They’re back, in iOS form!
pocketarc
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.

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.

iamsanteri
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...
pprotas
You can still see the widgets on the separate page, just scroll all the way to the left. That functionality is still the same
iamsanteri
Yeah, but the widgets themselves are different. Something ticks me off regarding the new implementation compared to how it was previously. Dare I'd say perhaps it was more "integrated" before?
pprotas
Scroll all the way to the bottom, click “Edit” and then “Customize” to get all the old widgets
moistly
Is that what they are? Old-school widgets vs the ones that show from Edit’s top-left “+” plus-button, which new-tangled widgets (all from Apple on my device)?
pprotas
Yes, but now that I look at it, it seems like Apple’s old school widget all got removed in favor of the new ones. For example, I can’t see the “old school” battery widget!
jasonhansel
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).
pasc1878
Depends on whgat they are - e.g. I want the magnifying glass as a widget - or the current weather forecast - These are not notifications
recursive
I use two widgets. Current weather, and firefox search. Neither of those make any sense as widgets.
toast0
I don't have iOS, so I'm going to assume their widgets work similarly to Android widgets.

I've got a calendar widget and a messaging widget. The calendar is in 'agenda' mode, so it shows me the next two or three things I'm supposed to do, and I can scroll to see more if I want. Almost everything I need from calendaring without loading the whole app. (Sounds like iOS might not allow scrolling, so then you need to use more screen, which is iffy)

For messaging, I've currently got it showing all messages (from one app), in case I dismissed a push and forgot about it. I used to have a widget showing just messages from my spouse, because I had a lot more messaging going on (used for work) and it was easy for things to get lost. Maybe I could be more organized, but that ship has sailed.

Weather seems like a nice option, but I'm ok with being surprised by unexpected weather.

I rather enjoyed the Windows Phone live tiles, where if you went to the home screen it'd show you all the icons, then if you sat there, things would flip and you'd get tidbits from everything. Widgets aren't quite the same.

vibbix
There's a fare amount happening in the custom scene for widgets (like there is for KWGT on Android). Checkout the scriptable app!
stuart78
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.
koch
Similarly as a developer (and maybe someone can correct me if I'm wrong, it's been a while since I've looked at making a widget), you are incapable of adding interaction.

I think taps are supported, I don't even know if you can scroll in a widget?

danpalmer
You can't scroll in them. You can't even intercept the tap event, you just add intents to views and iOS will open those intents.

The reason for this is supposedly battery life. For the bigger widgets on an iPhone that feels a little over the top, but the widgets system underpins the lock screen widgets which are now possibly always on, and the watchOS "complications"/widgets, which can also be always on. Because of that I can understand it.

k12sosse
Calendar widget scrolls just fine
escapedmoose
How do you get it to scroll? I use it myself in list view but it’s static
marcellus23
The calendar widget on iOS definitely doesn't scroll
FreezerburnV
I was going to reply with similar. I have a secondary Android device (largely for Tachiyomi, but I'm thinking of migrating to Android full-time) and I put a Todoist widget on my home screen. I also put an iOS Todoist widget on my home screen, and the difference is night and day. The iOS one has very specific pre-set sizes it can be and has no interactivity.

The Android one I can: Check tasks I've done, scroll the list of tasks, select individual tasks, change the view (which opens a selection dialog), open the configured view in Todoist, and add a new task to the configured view (which opens a small UI over my home screen).

The iOS one allows you to long press to change some settings, select individual tasks (which opens Todoist completely), open the configured view in Todoist, and add a new task to the configured view (which opens Todoist completely). It also has __very__ limited options for where you can put it on top of the already-limited sizing options. I can either put it at the very top of the screen, the middle of the screen (2 rows of apps above, 2 rows below), of the very bottom of the screen. While the Android one can be resized to basically whatever and put anywhere. You can also only see 3 total tasks in the widget since you can't change the size, the text size, and you can't scroll. I might as well just click the app because it offers __very__ little that just tapping the app doesn't, or notifications don't.

No wonder not many widgets are being adopted for iOS. They're extremely limited. And that's all on top of the point another comment was making about people making websites into apps with React Native or a wrapper which makes it really hard to create widgets, especially with things like heavy memory/CPU time limitations placed on widgets in iOS making it hard to be able to boot up the app and get enough data to create a widget with inside those limitations. Let alone making the iOS-specific APIs and whatnot available to your app.

nerdjon
I am curious, what apps are you using that you wish had widgets but don't?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Operyl
Off topic, how do you find copilot? Is it using Plaid for account sync? Anything particularly good/bad?
nerdjon
It does use Plaid, which unfortunately means they are at the mercy of them when things break... and things break a fair amount. I went over a month not being able to sync one of my accounts once. But it was all plaid.

Outside of that, I really like the app. I wish there was an iPad app, I think they should have done that before a Mac app. But the Mac app is nice.

It does what I need for it to, support is responsive but when its a syncing issue they are limited in what they can actually do.

Also if you use an Apple Card it isnt real time syncing like Mint you have to import it after the month is over... which doesnt really help with budgeting.

Operyl
Cool! I’ll give it a shot, I really am trying to find one that isn’t horrible. Plaid isn’t a downside to me, and it looks like they support direct sync with CapitalOne bypassing Plaid. If you want to shoot your referral code to me over at eliz at bassh dot net I’ll plop it in :).
hdl
Have never heard of LifeSum, how do you like it?
OJFord
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?

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 might keep.)

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.

Kwpolska
I’m using a handful of widgets on my Android phone (two calendars, two to-do lists, a digital clock, and weather). I looked through the list of widgets, and there aren’t many things worth adding. There are lots of things I doubt anyone uses, a lot of search bars (and those give off an early-Android vibe, with Google search being everywhere), and many apps offering shortcuts to specific screen inside the apps. There are also some things like a view into a Gmail inbox, which I can just do with one click, or for which I can get notifications on new e-mails. Android widgets can do anything AFAIK, so I would also suppose the app developers on Android (and presumably also on iOS) don’t have any ideas for worthwhile widgets.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
redslazer
An app that makes a great use of the widgets in iOS is Blinq, a digital business card app [0].

I find it super handy to be able to access the contact QR code without fiddling with lock screens and finding the app.

[0] https://blinq.me/

godzillafarts
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.

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.

Likewise with the Kasa widget. The only time I open the app these days is to setup a new device or an automation/scene.

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.

kcplate
For me the only truly useful widgets are the default weather, calendar (day agenda), and siri suggestions which is remarkably good (actually slightly spooky) at providing me apps that i may want to use in the moment.
rcarmo
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.

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.

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).

idearoots
I had a similar discussion with a friend lately.

From analytics (mine [0] and friends) on various iOS apps, around 3-8% of active users use the widget.

So this answers the question partially = only a small percent of people use widgets. Hence low priority.

iOS widget use depends on the app category also. E.g

- productivity apps have higher widget usage because they have power users, and often users already think in workflows & quick access

- more general users don't care or don't know about widgets at all

That being said, regardless of the category, I always encourage companies to add it. Why?

- the cost is much lower than they usually think

- improves retention

- higher potential of forming a habit

[0] - neuracache.com

D13Fd
This leaves off the fact that they don’t usually work well.
SllX
iOS widgets are a complement to existing apps, and most apps that stand to benefit from them do already have widgets.

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.

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.

meindnoch
Maybe they shouldn’t have limited them to SwiftUI. Most major apps don’t even use Swift, let alone SwiftUI.
systemvoltage
You need people developing them. There is no incentive to do that.
dpkirchner
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.)
escapedmoose
I’ve been using a budgeting widget which also doesn’t update until the app is opened, completely defeating the purpose of the widget. I still keep the widget on my screen just to remind myself to open it now and then.
D13Fd
Yes. Third party widgets wind up being big shortcuts that also happen to show outdated information.
D13Fd
This is it IMO. It’s the same problem as Apple Watch apps. First party widgets and apps from Apple work mostly fine. But third party ones are highly inconsistent in updating.

When the whole point of the widget or watch app is too show the status of something and it doesn’t update consistently, it’s basically useless.

So in short the problem is that most of them don’t update consistently which makes the whole category feel useless.

insane_dreamer
Is this an inherent limitation of 3party widgets or just bad programming?
nickelbob
Limitation of 3rd party. Apple has basically hamstrung all widgets in response to a few bad actors draining batteries.
alin23
This is the iOS power efficiency logic at work. Apps can schedule background tasks every 30 minutes to update their widgets, but they have like 30s of processing time to finish syncing.

But other things come into play: if the app was not launched for a while, iOS schedules the tasks less and less often. Same thing happens if low power mode is used or if memory is needed for other apps.

toast0
Can apps update the widgets when processing push notifications, in cases where they're allowed to run in response to pushes?
alin23
Yes, they can. But the same 30s limit applies, they're not allowed to do a lot of work when being launched in the background.
sroussey
My crypto widget from Kraken is always 15m of less behind. At least that is what is says…
counttheforks
Meanwhile the purpose of widgets is that you dont have to open the app. So apple prevents successful widgets from working once you're used to them. Doomed to fail.
jFriedensreich
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.
looseyesterday
Yeah totally agree. I feel lots of people do this and feel better which is why ios now pretty much hides notifications by default from the lock screen.
jwmoz
I keep getting spammed marketing notifications and tricks to get your attention, there's no way to stop them so need up having to disable all notifications for the app.
Hamuko
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).
looseyesterday
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
perardi
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”.

Anyways…discoverability?

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.

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.

3. If you add a new app, is there a universal affordance to know there’s a widget available? Not really.

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.

(And if I am missing an obvious affordance, please, make me look dumb here. I’d be glad to learn more.)

-

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.

https://www.macrumors.com/guide/dynamic-island/

Barely any Live Activities out there, but that omni-present and slightly animated subview lets me know there are fresh things to interact with.

alin23
I've done a few widgets for Volum (to easily turn on/off DIY lights and mute speakers: https://lowtechguys.com/volum) and for Sub Sol (to see the next private party: https://subsol.one)

Screenshot here: https://f.alinpanaitiu.com/mt37aX/Image.png

While they're easy to write because of the new SwiftUI APIs, they're indeed very limited.

All I am able to do is add buttons which when pressed, they open an URL.

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.

In the Sub Sol case, the URL only navigates to the party that you tapped on in the widget.

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.

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.

bredren
I don’t see it emphasized here, but Apple’s photos widget is great.

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.

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.