There’s a reason why Apple didn’t want widgets on the lock screen for a long time. They are truly useless. But they look somewhat good on the lock screen. But they should’ve been colorful and more Watch like. But for me.. I don’t use nothing more than calendar and weather. Pretty useless.
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Lock Screen Widgets - Almost useless?
- Thread starter akidokraja
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- ios 16 lock screen widgets
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It's because Apple wasn't capable of making an always on display for a long time. They're very useful with an AOD, though I'll give you they're next to useless without one.
They probably make more sense with an AO display!
Indeed, I think that's the point. The fact that we're getting them at the same time they launch their first ever phone with an AOD is certainly no coincidence.
And the other thing is that you can’t rely on them displaying fresh information. For example the weather widget shows old info too often. So I open the app everytime anyway.
I haven't had any problems adding 3rd party widgets. I mean I wish I could add more than 2-3 widgets like we can in the rectangular section below the time.
That could be just a bug. I seem to remember that many widgets had the same issue when they were allowed on the home screen for the first time, in iOS 14. Calendar, clock, weather... they worked fine in the widgets screen, but froze on the home screen. They did fix this eventually. I'm sure they'll fix the lock screen issues as well. Give them time.
You’ve got to open the apps once you update them. Then they show up in the list of available widgets.
A workaround for 3rd party lockscreen widgets without deleting and reinstalling apps is to change system language to something different and back.
Yeah I saw that suggestion elsewhere and it's not making any difference unfortunately. The other suggestion I saw was to uninstall/reinstall, but I haven't taken that step yet.
I’ve been having this problem since the beginning. I don’t think they’ll fix it in the near future.
For such a major new feature, sure sucks that its semi-broken for a lot of people.
What on earth was the beta for?
What on earth was the beta for?
Ok we get it, you have the most boring background out of everyone here 🤣
The only Lock Screen widget I would like to use is the Weather. I don’t like to use my location in order to conserve battery. Does anyone know if there is a way to set a location like you can on the Home Screen weather widget and not share location. Currently it just says ‘Location Services turned off’
There were no third party apps updated to iOS 16 during the beta (with some TestFlight exceptions).
Why not? I bet Apple was restricting it, otherwise why would developers not want to test it?
Apple was restricting it…as they do with all third party apps. No one can submit an app for public distribution using the new OS version’s SDK until the iOS release candidate is released.
As I mentioned, Developers 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 able to test it: in Xcode, their own devices and on a limited basis via TestFlight.
So no, it was not some conspiracy on Apples’s part to release crappy software.
I'd like an option to have a smaller time/date display, and two rows of widgets.
Rather than uninstall\install fully some have said to use the offload app feature which removes the app but not the data so when you reinstall the app its as it was.
I think Apple needs to include widgets that cater to those deep in the watch, phone, laptop ecosystem. I mean, with an apple watch some of these widgets become useless such as weather, schedule, activity, battery, huge lock screen clock etc. Maybe full sized calendar (month view) like the fantastical app has. I'm sure they can think of a few.