Widget

TinyWidget14 puts the Lock Screen’s Now Playing widget on a diet

Anthony Bouchard ∙ February 22, 2021

Most iPhone users are familiar with the Now Playing widget. It’s the thing that pops on your Lock Screen whenever you have any type of media playing in the background.

While it’s useful for granular playback controls, the Now Playing widget certainly takes up a lot of vertical screen real estate on the Lock Screen, which severely limits available space for missed notification banners. Fortunately, a new and free jailbreak tweak dubbed TinyWidget14 by iOS developer P2KDev puts the Now Playing widget on a diet.

Read More

Miss the Calculator widget on Mac? Check out these alternatives

Sandy Writtenhouse ∙ Updated October 24, 2022

With macOS Big Sur and later, you can no longer enjoy quick access to interactive widgets in the Notification Center. Sure, you can still see widgets for things like the weather and a world clock, but you can’t perform calculations in a few clicks like before.

You can use Spotlight Search for simple equations in a hurry, but if you need a little more, you have to open the Calculator app. Since a calculator is one of those utilities you don’t want to have to hunt for, we’ll show you some alternatives to replace your missing widget.

Here you’ll find calculator apps for your menu bar along with shortcuts to open your existing Mac Calculator app from the Dock and using your keyboard. Review the options and see which one is the best fit for your needs.

Read More

Emerald: A new Status Bar experience that Apple needs to take notes on

Anthony Bouchard ∙ January 20, 2021

Your iPhone’s Status Bar is intended to provide useful information at a glance, and while it definitely seems to have the basics covered, Apple could have went so much further in terms of implementing an immersive Status Bar-centric user experience. Given what an iPhone costs these days, wouldn’t you think they’d give this some thought?

While it seems unlikely that Apple will be upgrading the iPhone’s Status Bar any time soon, those lucky enough to have a jailbroken handset at their disposal won’t need to put up with the stock Status Bar experience any longer. Why, you ask? Just have a look at a newly released jailbreak tweak dubbed Emerald by iOS developers LaughingQuoll and thetimeloop, and all your questions will be answered.

Read More

WidgetCustoms offers jailbroken iOS 14 users a way to personalize their widgets

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated July 8, 2021

Those using iOS or iPadOS 14 on their daily driver handset(s) are probably keenly familiar with the upgraded widget system and how it compares with the much less intuitive widget system found on iOS and iPadOS 13.

Not only can you take advantage of much more powerful widgets than ever before, but you can even choose to seat them right next to your Home Screen’s application icons if you aren’t a fan of hiding all your widgets on a specialized page. But as nice as Apple’s upgraded widget system may be on iOS & iPadOS 14 devices, one thing Apple predictably forgot to add was a mechanism for user customization.

Read More

Klean gives jailbreakers a more interesting date and time display

Anthony Bouchard ∙ December 18, 2020

When you find yourself a bit curious as to what time it is, you might take a quick glance at your iPhone’s Lock Screen to take advantage of the massive time display iOS shows within the top half of the screen. It works, but we wouldn’t go out of our way to say it’s particularly beautiful.

If you’re interested in something a bit more eye-catching, and perhaps even more functional by way of the kind of information that gets displayed, then we’d advise checking out a newly released and free jailbreak tweak dubbed Klean by iOS developer Ali Maulana.

Read More

Spotify now has an iOS 14 widget

Evan Selleck ∙ October 14, 2020

With iOS 14, Apple welcomed a more robust widget experience for the mobile operating system. And now that the software is out there in the wild, more developers are adopting the feature support for their apps.

Read More

Centauri lets jailbreakers on iOS 14 customize the native Batteries widget

Anthony Bouchard ∙ October 3, 2020

One of the most substantial changes Apple implemented in the new iOS and iPadOS 14 software updates a couple of weeks ago involves widget functionality. Once confined to the Today page, widgets can now be integrated directly into the Home Screen user experience; furthermore, those same widgets have become more advanced and interactive than they were in previous versions of iOS and iPadOS, but they’re still far from perfect.

If you’re fortunate enough to have a jailbroken iOS or iPadOS 14 device at your disposal (currently only possible with the checkra1n jailbreak and an A9 or A9X handset at the time of this writing), then you may now take advantage of a newly released and free jailbreak tweak dubbed Centauri by iOS developer MTAC to unlock new features specifically designed for iOS and iPadOS 14’s native Batteries widget.

Read More

How to add a photo widget on your iPhone Home Screen

Sandy Writtenhouse ∙ Updated July 29, 2022
Widgetsmith photo and album widgets on iPhone

A photo widget, having your favorite faces or scenes right on your Home Screen is a great way to start your day. You have a couple of ways to add a photo widget on your iPhone Home Screen. One option is obviously using the Photos app widget provided by Apple. The other is to use a third-party app with a custom widget. Here we’ll explain how to use both ways to display a photo widget on your iPhone.

Read More