WidgetPod is a highly customizable Now Playing widget for Apple Music and Spotify

If you need a Now Playing-like widget for Apple Music and Spotify that supports live updating and rich customization, check out the excellent WidgetPod app from developer Aditya Rajveer.


STORY HIGHLIGHTS:

  • It updates live when launched after your music player.
  • Rich settings for custom widget aesthetic.
  • Add playback controls, switch themes, etc.
  • Works with Apple Music and Spotify.
  • Free to download, $1.99 to unlock everything.

A music widget with live updating

Building on the experiences Aditja has acquired while developing the excellent Marvis music player, WidgetPod users clever trickery to overcome perhaps the biggest deficiency of the new Home Screen widgets in iOS 14: lack of interactivity and the inability to update itself at very specific intervals, like when you change a song.

“A key feature of WidgetPod is that it supports live updating of the widgets when it’s launched after you start playing music in your player,” notes the developer. This widget does not play actual music: touching the player icon simply redirects you to the Music app or the Spotify app.

The WidgetPod widgets come in three sizes and support customization: you can easily add playback controls you’d like to appear on the widget, change themes and backgrounds, etc.

But it goes much deeper than that. With the settings interface, you can do things like pick a different accent color for each element. This lets you have a differently-colored track title, artist name, playback controls, etc. to distinguish them better from one another.

And thanks to iCloud, your settings are kept in sync across devices. WidgetPod also features a native interface on the iPad, which is super nice. WidgetPod doesn’t collect any data from you.

Pricing and availability

WidgetPod is available free in the App Store.

The free download comes with an optional $1.99 In-App Purchase to unlock premium features, like widget customization, using Spotify, synchronizing settings via iCloud and more.