Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
3rd party widgets
- Thread starter miamialley
- WikiPost WikiPost
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
- Status
I am referring more to the APIs for iOS 14 widgets. Developers are still working through what can and can't be done.
No I get it. I’m Just saying widgets are not new to them. Plenty of other apps have managed it well so far.
In terms of sports scores if its not going to be able to be upto date then there is no point really. No point having a quick glance at a widget to see your team is winning when in reality they arent but the widget hasnt updated. Thats where apps that do the notifications for things are better probably, i use the Sky Sports Football app for updates about my teams matches and they are generally just a few seconds after it happens.
They are probably still trying to figure out how much to charge for a subscription fee. Seems to be the new thing.
Would that explain why the Spark email widget doesn't seem to update until I open the actual app? The app icon badge will show that a new email has come in, but the widget shows no new emails. I tried turning background refresh on for Spark, but that didn't seem to help. Makes the widget pretty much useless if it doesn't update when a new email comes in.
I tried Spark as well. Had trouble with updating and with watch compilations as well.
I'm really noticing that Widgets are not doing what Apple said they would do. They basically are glorified apps at this point. I have them because it's easy access, but if they don't update on their own, than having a widget with scores serves no purpose.
Yes that is my understanding. I also use Spark and tried, but stopped, using the widgets because they were almost always 'out of date'. For data that needs to be constantly up to date, the widgets are not well suited to that.
Yes, I understand that. The concept of a widget is not unfamiliar to any of them. Plenty of apps got their widgets out in a matter of days. There’s nothing so complex about an iOS widget that you couldn’t have one released by now...if you wanted to. I just don’t get why some devs are taking so long.
I actually don't agree with that statement. Widgets are a very different beast from the core application. They are entirely new to iOS (very different from the Today View widgets) and entirely new to some developers. The widgets will come. Give it a little time.
All kinds of apps take time to release even small updates, let alone new features, so it's not exactly all that unusual. Furthermore, when it comes to these new widgets and some potential limitations or perhaps bugs that might exist relating how often they can be refreshed/updated it's possible some developers might be a little hesitant to switch over to them if their widgets deal with information that would usually be expected to be real-time, like sports scores.
Development priorities.
it is likely creating a widget isn’t on the top of every teams to do list.
This!
Most developers have a roadmap for new features, planned weeks/months in advanced and have to balance that roadmap against bug fixes. Most probably have widgets on the roadmap, but already have code in flight for other new features they were planning on releasing. Any bugs found, slows development on any new feature and takes away developer cycles to focus on the roadmap.
It’s a balancing act, which doesn’t always works out how the developer wants.
I want to let you know I added to the wiki post a few widgets that are worth mentioning:
- WeatherGraph: Visual Forecasts
- YR.no
- TradingView - Stocks & Forex
Agree the logo wasn't necessary in the widget since we already have the name of the widget below the widget and would rather see another item on the list in the widget.
The bigger ones indeed are still missing.
Until then you have these which might work for you:
- FotMob - Soccer Scores
- Pennant
- Standings Widget
- LIVE Cricket Scores CricSmith
- WeatherGraph: Visual Forecasts
- YR.no
- TradingView - Stocks & Forex
Agree the logo wasn't necessary in the widget since we already have the name of the widget below the widget and would rather see another item on the list in the widget.
The bigger ones indeed are still missing.
Until then you have these which might work for you:
- FotMob - Soccer Scores
- Pennant
- Standings Widget
- LIVE Cricket Scores CricSmith
Home Photo Widget. The author (@maka ) is here on MacRumors too. Great widget that fills the hole left by Apple's Photos widget.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/home-photo-widget/id1532412624
The BBC Weather app has been updated with a new medium size widget showing a six hour forecast.
Not sure what you mean by live update but widgets can't really do live updating.
Apollo for Reddit has a bunch of really nice ones that you can set any subreddit to, maybe the best widgets I’ve seen so far for iOS 14.
Last edited:
The clock isn't live?
I think developers just haven't figured out the best way to do it...and yes, Apple is probably not making it easy.
I get that it won't be "live" on the screen as you stare at the widget, but damn, wouldn't that be nice for sport scores and the like?? The Google app can do it. I think Apple is going to have to get it to that point pretty darn quick.
Sounds like that might be something that Google is doing on their sites. Do you have a content/ad blocker that you are using, in case that might help with something like that?In Safari how do I stop the stupid suggestion that keeps coming up at the bottom asking to install the Google search widget..??
