Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

spinedoc77

macrumors G4
Original poster
Jun 11, 2009
11,488
5,413
Maybe an unpopular opinion but I'm really not feeling the new widgets. I'm not really sure having them on a home page will be more beneficial to my productivity than having them listed on the widgets page, but I'm not really arguing that point as I can see the benefit to some. My issue are the widgets themselves and I'm just hoping these are just growing pains.

It seems the new widgets waste a lot of space, the fonts/ui are larger and there is much more empty space. They cannot be mixed in with the old widgets on the widget page, but have to be on the top of the list where I prefer some of my 3rd party widgets. But even on a home screen it just seems like they could condense information much better. I really hope this isn't a case of dumbing things down to make them "simple", a theme which is prevalent in iOS but many times actually makes things more complicated and/or convoluted. In addition on the widgets page they have now enlarged/widened the gutters so all the widgets are now smaller/narrower.

Firstly across the board with the new widgets you cannot roll them up, I really loved this functionality of the old widgets as I could just unroll them as needed, but most times the rolled up version had all the info I needed.

Take the battery widget for example, here is the old version. For those of us who want exact percentages that was there, there was an icon to let you know the device was charging, you could roll it up to show less information and take up less space, and finally the space was well used and if a device was not shown the widget got smaller and took up less space.

batteryold.JPG



Now the new corresponding widget shows 6 different slots, even though only 2 devices are being monitored. Also no roll up, although on a positive note that means no space wasted for the title bar. I'm not particulary sure if font sizes have changed as the pictures aren't from the same source and I don't have iOS13 on my phone anymore. Also although it doesn't show up on my snips the new widget has a much darker grey color to it for some reason which isn't attractive IMO. I've also lost the information of the percentage of battery and if the device is charging. I definitely prefer the older widget.

batterynew.JPG


I have other widgets which I'm not thrilled with either, I can post them up if anyone wants to see more side by side. In particular I really think the News widget went downhill. The old widget let you roll up into just one news story or roll out to several but with the new one you have to pick either a widget with one top story, a widget with one story and an Apple news (paid sub) story, or a topic widget with 1 or 3 stories in that specific topic only. It's a bit odd the choices they offer and should be much more customizable than that.

Weather widget is another good example, old widget you could roll up and only see one day, or roll down and see the week. Now you have to choose which view you want with the new widget and are stuck with it. Stocks widget same complaint.

Edit: I'm a bit confused on the News widget, the choices seem to change topics for some reason. When selecting widgets the topic of news doesn't seem customizable, you just get a random topic such as Medicine or Politics with no way to choose which topic you want the widget to cover.
 
Last edited:
I think the best widgets will be 3rd party ones. It’s on beta 2 so it has plenty to improve on

I like my battery widget on the screen better but least you still have the old widgets if you still wish to view them like that

Will take time but so far so good. They will improve over time

I hope they add where you resize them on the homescreen
 
  • Like
Reactions: Apple_Robert
I think the best widgets will be 3rd party ones. It’s on beta 2 so it has plenty to improve on

I like my battery widget on the screen better but least you still have the old widgets if you still wish to view them like that

Will take time but so far so good. They will improve over time

I hope they add where you resize them on the homescreen

I don't think the old widgets are there anymore, otherwise I would have no complaints at all. I looked through my widget list on the old widgets page and I don't see any of the stock ones on there anymore. I understand they are going to phase these widgets out (which is a concern on grandfathered ones or ones that aren't developed for anymore) because they don't want to support 2 widget systems. I'm hoping I'm wrong, can anyone else get the old stock widgets back?

I'm also seriously concerned about 3rd party widgets, this means we at the very least lose the roll up functionality of the old widgets which saved a ton of space. Yah I know we can stack them, but I'd rather have a single item view of multiple widgets that I can see with a single glance. Plus with stacking you only get as many items as Apple wants you to have, News has 1 item, Stocks has 3 items, etc.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Craiguyver
I don't think the old widgets are there anymore, otherwise I would have no complaints at all. I looked through my widget list on the old widgets page and I don't see any of the stock ones on there anymore. I understand they are going to phase these widgets out (which is a concern on grandfathered ones or ones that aren't developed for anymore) because they don't want to support 2 widget systems. I'm hoping I'm wrong, can anyone else get the old stock widgets back?

They still appear so dunno what apples long term plan is for them though
e0b4dd228130759250ffa5ee42166045.png
 
They still appear so dunno what apples long term plan is for them though
e0b4dd228130759250ffa5ee42166045.png

I'm only seeing 3rd party widgets in the old format, I don't see any stock widgets in the old format such as Stock, Calendar, Apple News, Weather, etc.
 
I'm only seeing 3rd party widgets in the old format, I don't see any stock widgets in the old format such as Stock, Calendar, Apple News, Weather, etc.

yes, all Apple ones are the new style, with 3rd Party coming after Devs can submit apps using the new Xcode in late August.

The new ones can be much better than the old ones, with 3rd party, just wait and see.

The only thing I want is the Battery one to have the Percentage on it (which might come, as Apple tweak things). I like that the charging is now like it is everywhere else, with the bolt on the battery.
 
  • Like
Reactions: spinedoc77
I agree. The Podcasts widget was one of my favorites. In iOS 13 it would list 4 of my most recent podcasts in a condensed space and it was one touch to start playing the podcast. Now there is a lot of wasted space and it's not even one touch.
 
i miss haptic touch/3D touch widgets. used to be able to hold on the chrome icon to see a list of my most visited sites. now that's gone. could see the forecast on carrot, now it just shows location options.
 
yes, all Apple ones are the new style, with 3rd Party coming after Devs can submit apps using the new Xcode in late August.

The new ones can be much better than the old ones, with 3rd party, just wait and see.

The only thing I want is the Battery one to have the Percentage on it (which might come, as Apple tweak things). I like that the charging is now like it is everywhere else, with the bolt on the battery.
Why can the new widgets be much better than the old ones?
 
I totally agree that the old widgets were much more useful. The battery widget is now huge even if you don't have any devices connected. Also the home screen widgets are less interactive then the classic widgets in the Today View area.
 
  • Like
Reactions: redbeard331
From what I understood, the new widgets cannot be used as interactive mini apps. They’re allowed to show information but tapping them must take you to the app.

This will disallow widgets like Things where you can check off your To Do’s right in the widget or Streaks where you can complete a streak by long pressing a habit in the widget.

I think the new widgets have a lot of potential but it’s a shame that some of these useful widgets will no longer exist.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.