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With iOS 14, Apple allowed users to customize their iPhone home screen with widgets for the first time, which has become extremely popular with users. A new investigation of Sensor tower reveals that nearly 15% of iPhone users in the US have already installed at least one app to change the look of the iOS 14 home screen.
The research company has tracked download numbers for the five most popular apps available on the App Store that offer multiple home screen widgets: Widgetsmith, Color Widgets, Photo Widget: Simple, WidgetBox, and Photo Widget.
According to Sensor towerTogether, these apps have been installed on more than 13 million iPhones in the United States alone since the release of iOS 14 on September 16. On September 21, all of the above apps were downloaded more than 3.8 million times.
Widgets have been commonplace on Android devices for over a decade. For the past two months, iPhone users have shown enduring interest in adding these helpful shortcuts to their home screens as well. As the ecosystem continues to grow on Apple devices, developers have the opportunity to identify innovative ways to meet this new consumer demand and potentially drive more engagement through more home screen real estate.
In September, Pinterest broke its record for daily downloads on the App Store thanks to widgets in iOS 14, although the app didn’t even offer any kind of widget at the time. That’s because users were downloading Pinterest for inspiration in the iOS 14 home screen design. The app registered around 616,000 downloads on the App Store on September 21.
The research also mentions an increase in searches for apps offering replacement icons for iOS, which also became popular after the release of iOS 14. With iOS 14.3, which is currently available as a beta version, users will be able to create shortcuts to apps with custom icons without being redirected to the Shortcuts app, which should further increase interest in these mods.
Have you ever tried to customize the iOS 14 home screen with these apps? Let us know in the comment section.
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