Recommended Posts

Why hasn't iOS yet copied Android and introduced widgets, a selection of apps that stay open on the home page and can click through to the app icons somehow

is it to do with Battery life or something? Its not like they new to Apple, OSX has had them for years.

I'm sure they could come up with a good way of theming them plus it would give the store another way to make money from selling Widgets.

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/966102-why-doesnt-ios-do-widgets/
Share on other sites

See, thats where you re mistaken. Apple isn't in the business to make money. They want to give us the best digital experience ever at the lowest price possible! :sleep:

o__O

The internet really does need sarcasm indicators... at least I hope this is sarcasm :p

<img>

if a widget is done well then yes very useful, but from my experience with android widgets they either tried to put too much info on them or no info what ever making them a glorified icon.

To many useless widgets out their, iOS can appear quite featureless at times but when apple try to add features they usualy do it badly, multitasking for example.

I'm sure many iOS programmers/designers have discussed in many meetings adding widgets to iOS. I wouldn't be surprised if they add it this year or next. Historically, Apple has always added things in small doses. A feature here and there in each OS. Multitasking ("Multitasking" <-- if that makes you feel better) was just added last year which was needed before something like Widgets can be implemented properly.

It does seem silly to have to open my Mail App to even see what the subject headers are, then I open Facebook to see latest friends update, and then I open my Twitter to see whats new there...etc, etc. Especially after seeing the slickness of WP7.

Best thing I've seen was LockInfo if you JB your iPhone... But I don't like having my iPhone JB.

I'm sure many iOS programmers/designers have discussed in many meetings adding widgets to iOS. I wouldn't be surprised if they add it this year or next. Historically, Apple has always added things in small doses. A feature here and there in each OS. Multitasking ("Multitasking" <-- if that makes you feel better) was just added last year which was needed before something like Widgets can be implemented properly.

It does seem silly to have to open my Mail App to even see what the subject headers are, then I open Facebook to see latest friends update, and then I open my Twitter to see whats new there...etc, etc. Especially after seeing the slickness of WP7.

Best thing I've seen was LockInfo if you JB your iPhone... But I don't like having my iPhone JB.

Why would you not have your iPhone JB?!?!? That's just insanity to me :p. I wouldn't even want and iPhone if it wasn't JB. Stock it's a POS.

if a widget is done well then yes very useful, but from my experience with android widgets they either tried to put too much info on them or no info what ever making them a glorified icon.

To many useless widgets out their, iOS can appear quite featureless at times but when apple try to add features they usualy do it badly, multitasking for example.

Are you kidding me? Apple did a brilliant job with their multitasking support. How do I know this, for sure? Because many a friend who own an Android handset bitch-and-moan about their battery life. Meanwhile I'm running on a charge from 2 days ago... :laugh:

But everyone is entitled to their opinion... :sleep:

Why would you not have your iPhone JB?!?!? That's just insanity to me :p. I wouldn't even want and iPhone if it wasn't JB. Stock it's a POS.

I've had it JB before. I tried a bunch of stuff out, and the only thing I really like is the free WiFi tethering with MyFi app. Everything else just doesn't seem worth the hassle each time a new update is released.

  • Like 2

the multitasking was deffinatly better than Android dont get me wrong, the multitasking use to kill my HTC Hero. From my experience on the 3gs when i had one i just didnt think the multitasking was that brilliant, deffinate effect on performance and with each os update the phone seemed to get sloppier. but thats just me, each to their own.

the multitasking was deffinatly better than Android dont get me wrong, the multitasking use to kill my HTC Hero. From my experience on the 3gs when i had one i just didnt think the multitasking was that brilliant, deffinate effect on performance and with each os update the phone seemed to get sloppier. but thats just me, each to their own.

Ahh, I see. To be fair, i haven't used iOS 4 on 3gs, only iPhone 4. I've heard from many people that it really wasn't that it was crap on 3gs and ate battery.

I've had it JB before. I tried a bunch of stuff out, and the only thing I really like is the free WiFi tethering with MyFi app. Everything else just doesn't seem worth the hassle each time a new update is released.

Really? You don't like lockscreen info? You don't like custom themes? You're happy to be able to put only 12 icons per folder? You don't like being able to quick reply to an SMS right in the pop up notification without having to open the entire SMS application? What about being able to clear memory before playing a game so it runs better? I could go on and on and on, but there are a ton of tweaks available that make the iPhone sooooo much better. If it wasn't for JB, I wouldn't own and iPhone. Android and WP7 are much better OOTB.
Really? You don't like lockscreen info?

I need to know what time it is, if I've missed some calls, and if I've got a text message waiting, and to access 'media playback' controls if it's just being a fancy ipod. I don't particularly need to see what the whether next-week is going to be, what movies are playing, or what CNN's latest headline is. In fact, I kinda like not having all of that force fed to me.

You don't like custom themes?

No, not really.

You're happy to be able to put only 12 icons per folder?

6 has served me well so far - I didn't know there was a limit.

You don't like being able to quick reply to an SMS right in the pop up notification without having to open the entire SMS application?

Doesn't bother me at all. 9/10 times My friends write

Text messages

Spread over three or four

different messages

God knows why they do it, but they do. Launching the messages app is wait-free, and often times I don't even want to reply at all.

What about being able to clear memory before playing a game so it runs better?

That sounds like my own personal hell. That kind of nonsense was garbage in the mid 90s when I was doing it on classic Mac OS, I sure as hell don't want to time warp back to that nonsense.

Not that I'm much of a gamer, but I don't think I've ever noticed an iPhone game performing more poorly at one time than another - I'm happy to leave that sort of thing up to the OS because it does a fine job most of the time.

I could go on and on and on, but there are a ton of tweaks available that make the iPhone sooooo much better.

Those are all the things I like not worrying about. For the majority of iPhone owners that sort of thing wouldn't make it better the way (for example) an easier way to get photos onto flicker or facebook does, or a way to upload video to youtube from their phone does, or the way some more levels in angry birds does.

No please leave iDevices out of the widget frenzy, to me IMO they are a fad they fade away within a few days.

Agreed.

Also, why do people insist on pressuring people to JB? Look, the guy said he tried it and didn't like it (same with me), why do you need to reply to that. I think people understand the "benefit" of JB but choose not to. What's the big deal?

(Just the thought of having some memory manager app makes me shudder. I had enough of that crap on my Palm Treo and BlackJack. Absolute waste of time for the end-user.)

To the people saying that they don't want widgets, the addition of widgets wouldn't affect you at all would it? I mean, if you didn't want them then you wouldn't have to add them. The same mentality applies to Android, people don't have to add widgets.

I must admit, widgets was one of the selling points for me getting an Android phone. Not the selling point, but certainly one of them.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • Meta will now use data from outside businesses to personalize AI responses by David Uzondu In an update that's rolling out globally (except in a handful of countries), Meta will use your data from outside businesses to personalize your AI responses and your primary feeds. Meta already utilizes your shopping activity to target ads, but the company now plans to expand this tracking to personalize other "parts of your experience" like feed algorithms and AI assistant chats. The company is replacing the two settings ("Your activity off Meta technologies" and "Activity from other businesses") that currently let you disconnect off-platform activity with a single, renamed setting called Activity from other businesses. If you don't want Meta to manipulate your feed and AI responses using your outside history, you can just turn the Activity from other businesses setting off in your account settings. This toggle resides within your Accounts Center, applying your choice to every connected profile. Turning this off will not stop companies from sending your data to Meta. The company will still collect your web interactions, but it only uses them to train products, while still accessing external accounts you connect. When The Verge spoke to Meta spokesperson, Emil Vazquez, the representative said that this update will exclude several locations at launch including the European region, the UK, Brazil, Thailand, South Africa, Turkey, South Korea, Ecuador, Nigeria, and Kenya. The new update comes at a time when the social media giant is recovering from a major PR disaster involving generative AI. Last week, there was a huge security issue on Instagram where attackers figured out a way to exploit a prompt injection vulnerability. Hackers managed to trick Meta AI into handing over account ownership (even if the victim had 2FA enabled). Some of the affected accounts include the dormant Obama White House profile, cosmetics brand Sephora, the Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force, and security researcher Jane Manchun Wong. Internally, the company also had to scale back plans on its Model Capability Initiative (MCI), an employee-monitoring program designed to train corporate AI models by recording worker keystrokes and screen activity, after employees raised privacy concerns and complained about severe battery life drain.
    • JetBrains is working to cut false positives in RustRover 2026.2 by David Uzondu Recently, JetBrains released the fifth EAP build of its dedicated IDE, RustRover 2026.2, bringing improvements like a Run gutter icon for criterion_main! macro benchmarking and a feature that alerts you when there are unused traits in your current scope. Now, the company is out with a blog post addressing one of the "most common" complaints from users: false positives. In RustRover, a false positive occurs when the editor incorrectly highlights something as an error even though the project compiles and runs successfully. This mismatch flags a gap between the IDE's internal intelligence and the actual compiler. When the editor flashes red warnings over perfectly valid code, developers lose trust in the tool, which stalls momentum. Traditionally, RustRover runs cargo check to detect compiler errors and warnings, but it also relies on its own code analysis engine to power real-time features. To provide quick feedback, this engine parses your source code into a syntax tree while inferring types and resolving names as you type. Because this engine must work on broken, half-written code and react instantly, its logic sometimes diverges from the compiler's, producing false positives that do not exist in the compiler's eyes. JetBrains said that it has a "dedicated task force" focused specifically on identifying and fixing false positives by analyzing user reports and examining large-scale open-source projects. To speed up this process, the team built an internal system modeled after Crater, the famous Rust project that compiles and runs tests for every single crate published on crates.io. This automated pipeline compares the diagnostics from RustRover's analysis with actual compiler output to catch discrepancies before they reach users, ensuring smoother workflows. RustRover, for those who're unaware, is a dedicated IDE designed specifically for Rust developers. It's been around for a couple of years now, providing features like built-in debugging via LLDB, seamless cargo integration, advanced macro expansion, and HTML support. JetBrains distributes the app under two licensing models: a paid commercial subscription and a free option for non-commercial use.
    • Last year I bought the 2TB variant for $114 on Amazon. That's crazy that the 1TB is now 67% more expensive for half the storage, even with the newer T9 already on the market. And that's considered a good deal.
    • You can disable all non needed features from Brave. There is also Brave Origin which removes them entirely and it is free for Linux.
    • I wish I could use Brave but the tab suspension feature is horrible. It doesn't suspend them like Edge does. Even after 2h open with 70+ tabs (same as Edge), it has 2GB more consumption than Edge for no reason.
  • Recent Achievements

    • One Year In
      Primer1st earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Experienced
      JayZJay went up a rank
      Experienced
    • Reacting Well
      Sir_Timbit earned a badge
      Reacting Well
    • Week One Done
      rubentuben8 earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Week One Done
      ARaclen earned a badge
      Week One Done
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      512
    2. 2
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      229
    3. 3
      Edouard
      135
    4. 4
      ATLien_0
      87
    5. 5
      Steven P.
      81
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!