The widget screen is available whilst your phone is locked, but obviously your home screen isn’t. I guess this now gives the option of having some widgets supper easy to check and some more protected.
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Widgets screen and App Library, anyone else feel Apple hasn't quite nailed this?
- Thread starter tomtad
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This is true, however is does make things messy.
The purpose of the widget screen, or the Today screen, was it held all widgets and gave a quick glance at information from the lock screen. It had focus and a clear purpose very different from the home screen which was for storing and launching apps.
Now the home screen has effectively become this, Craig even said when demoing the smart stack widget and how it was a quick glance at calendars, the day's news etc. This used to be the purpose of the Today screen.
So you have the home screen, with your most important widgets to glance at, and the Today screen (accessible from the lock screen) which has your less important widgets or things you've don't look at often. This is sort of the opposite of what you'd want, surely the widgets you use most should be accessible from the lock screen? On top of this you then have legacy widgets that have their own separate picker and editing method lumped in. It's all very messy and doesn't seem thought through.
If anything, if the Today/widget screen has to be kept, it would make more sense as a home for all your widgets and the new widget picker, kind of like the App library but for widgets. You could then say the purpose of this is to access all your widgets from the lock screen. But I do think it's better off ditched, or at least an option for this.
I don’t personally run betas so I haven’t had a play with it yet. One to experiment with...
hopefully this gets sorted out, but not being able to delete an app by searching through the app library is a problem. Eg, you cannot locate an app alphabetically and then delete it. You have to force "jiggle mode" and then find the folder the app is in to delete it.
Delete app should be an option once long pressing on the app from the alphabetized list.
Delete app should be an option once long pressing on the app from the alphabetized list.
Wow not a fan of this. It sure seems companies sometimes go overboard on all this ML/AI stuff. I have one home screen and all the apps are in folders. I know where everything I want to use is. I don’t think I’ll be using the app library much unless there’s a way to turn off this ML sorting stuff.
Outside of the apps on my main page, I have always found swyping down from anywhere and searching the fastest way to find/launch an app. I know this might not be ideal, but once you get use to it, it is a very fast way to launch/find apps.
I have to agree with the OP. I got rid of all the widgets on the left most screen and just put the most frequently used ones on my home page. I edit widgets from there too. Since I hid two pages of miscellaneous apps, I’d love to see the library on the left screen so i can do a quick search for the odd app that I may need.
Same. When I had a iPhone... I only had one home screen and all my apps were categorized similar to App Library, but they were in managed how I saw fit.
I just think... right now, we are first beta, I'm sure changes will be made. But people complaining about App Library, should just take the time to sort your apps on the HomeScreen and there won't be a need to go into App Library lol.
I guess beta testers can provide feedback but how much does Apple changes features during betas? For example I watched one of the developer sessions on widgets. They were very clear that widgets are not mini-apps. I don’t think Apple would change that during betas. But maybe if it’s easy enough to add a toggle to turn off auto sorting of apps they would do it?
Well, for one change... I'm hoping widgets have more freedom on the iPad as it is on the iPhone, but I'm under the impression, that's not going to happen under the betas. But if people are requesting a way to customize their App Library or make changes to it. Why not just do it on the HomeScreen? That's the point I don't get. More than likely their first interaction with the iPhone will be on the HomeScreen.
I just want a scenario where if I customize my HomeScreen and have my apps sorted by categorizes, would there be a need to go into the App Library?
The app library is strange. It categorizes some apps incorrectly. It has for example an app for Twitter under social. And other apps like Reddit and other social apps under lifestyle. There is also no way as of yet. For us to edit this. I wouldn't mind the app library as much. If i could edit it the way i wanted it. And label it. How i wanted it.
Agreed. Apps are placed in wrong categories for me as well and I can’t even locate some of my apps. It’s a mess and it’s triggering my OCD. I really don’t understand why Apple is auto categorizing our apps. Is this Tim Cook’s phone? No. The App Library would be much more useful if we chose which folders are apps went in and what the folders were called. C’mon, Apple. There’s always something they want to have absolute control over.
Just swipe down on your main page. Spotlight is accessible from any screen. Just another reason the App Library page seems unnecessary.
I also feel like there's a lot going on now, Initially when the first iPhone came out there weren't many apps and the rows of icons worked really well.
After it became possible to have third party apps, the rows of icons layout became potentially more complicated. Some of us tried to reduce this complexity by limited the amount of apps we have installed and organising the layout visually or by type of app. Apple introduced folders to help us organise. But I suppose a lot of people didn't organise at all and this App Library will automatically do that for them.
But for those who were already organised (as pointed out by @itsmilo and @Thomas Veil below), it might feel like there is now a lot going on in that there's an extra page (App Library) which might not add anything. And also the possibility to have widgets in Today view and the home screen might feel like there's a lot going on.
But I do like the Activity widget. The only information I want is the number for active energy, the number of exercise minutes and the stand hours. Getting that information without opening the app seems useful to me. And probably there are other such useful instance.
May guess is that the 3 app positions will stabilize with use. You haven’t put enough miles on it yet for the system to have those apps settle into their rightful places.
Because they’re obsessed with ML/AI and want to do all these things for us. Enough already.
To make information you regularly reference easily viewable, such as Weather, Calendar and in my case my Tesla car status. I have found widgets very useful since they came to the iPad home screen, and look forward to having widgets on my iphone home screen in iOS14
If you want to sort the apps in folders yourself, that's what the home screen is for, the folders on the App Library are sorted by category, and if I remember rightly, there's a primary & secondary one that can be assigned by the devs, so what folder they end up in, depends on what's been picked as Primary, I would guess (I need to dive into this more to be certain)
Seems to be an easy solution if Apple want to keep the widget page. In Home Screen settings, provide a toggle to turn this off.
Those who wish to keep access to legacy widgets can then still have access if they wish. I’d default to this being off for new users.
Those who wish to keep access to legacy widgets can then still have access if they wish. I’d default to this being off for new users.
You’re missing the point. I do not want folders on my Home screen. I’m just saying that the App Library implementation seems half-baked.
This!! A thousand times this! I think the App Library exist to give users a different look.. instead of just looking at the HomeScreen, users are able to go in the App Library to see sorted categories and apps listed alphabetically.
I get your point... you want something like Android. But what @Ansath and I are saying, customization exist on HomeScreen. And if you don't want folders, you are able to hide pages of apps on the HomeScreen.
I tried and definitely saw the context menu, but no delete. I will have to check again later.
Well, you said you wanted to choose what went into what folder and what the folder was called, that's just what the home screen does. The App library is just a way to see all apps by category, or in a list. I would say that I agree that we should be able to make the App List the default view in the App library though.