Lots of iPhone and iPad users take advantage of iOS’ Today widget system to snag a glance at pertinent information without needing to launch and navigate complex apps. But Apple doesn’t provide much in terms of widget customization.
If you have a jailbroken handset at your disposal, then you can take advantage of a newly released and free jailbreak tweak called BetterWidgets by iOS developer ShadowDev to get the customization options that Apple has deprived you of since the Today widget system came to be.
BetterWidgets provides users with both functional and aesthetic customization options for their today widgets, which include always-expanded widgets, transparency effects, custom colors, hiding and showing particular elements, and more. Examples of some of these customizations are depicted in the screenshot examples above.
Once installed, BetterWidgets adds a preference pane to the Settings app where users can configure the tweak to their liking:
Options here include:
- Always expand widgets
- Square widgets
- Transparent widgets (iOS 13 only)
- Hide widget header text (iOS 13 only)
- Hide widget header altogether (iOS 13 only)
- No Lock screen padding (iOS 13 only)
- Enable and configure custom edit button text
- Make the edit button square
- Make the edit button transparent
- Blur the background
- Use a custom wallpaper for the widget page
- Customize RGB footer text color
- And more…
The developer provides a Respring button at the bottom of the preference pane that can be used to save any changes you make.
While users probably won’t use all of the features that BetterWidgets brings to the table, I find that always-expanded widgets and the custom text options are among some of the most noteworthy. I probably wouldn’t recommend making things square unless you’re using other tweaks that match this aesthetic elsewhere in iOS, but to each their own.
If you’re interested in trying BetterWidgets, then you can download it for free from the Twickd repository via your preferred package manager. The tweak supports jailbroken iOS11, 12, and 13 devices.
Will you be giving BetterWidgets a try? Let us know in the comments section below.