If one thing is clear after the release of iOS 14 last week, it is that there was a lot of paint-up demand for home screen widgets on the iPhone. Over the last few days a variety of third-party apps have added home screen widget support, but one app has come out the rest: Widgetsmith.
Widgetsmith comes from David Smith, the developer behind many popular Apple Pal watches and iPhone apps, including the popular Smith, Sleep + and Pedometer +. Widgetsmith’s concept is that it lets you create custom and personalized widgets for your iOS 14 home screen; Here’s how it works.
Update September 22: Widgets for iPhone brings a lot of additional customization options, including a new update for Smith, a new custom color picker that lets you colorize widgets to match your aesthetic perfectly. A new battery icon widget has also been added to the update.
Hands on No: Widgetsmith for iOS 14 Homescreen Widgets
In the Widgetsmith app on your iPhone, there are three different widget sizes to choose from: small, medium and large. Each widget can display different types of information and can be customized with different font styles and colors, tint and background colors.
The process is incredibly simple. Just click the “Add” button for the size of the widget you want to create, then tap on the widget to customize it.
The first decision you make is what kind of information you want the widget to display on your home screen. Here are the data sources available in Widgetsmith:
- Time
- Date
- Custom: photo, photos in album, custom text, blank
- Calendar Lender
- Reminders
- The weather
- Health and activity
- Recruitment
- Astronomy
In each data type, there are a variety of different options for displaying any data type you choose. From there, you have additional customization options, including font style, tint color, and background color. The result can be as colorful and aesthetically pleasing or informative as you want.
Once you’ve designed the iOS 14 home screen widget in the Widgetsmith app, you can go back to your home screen, long-press on full jiggle mode, then tap the “+” icon in the upper-left corner. Look for Widgetsmith in the list of apps, then select the size of the widget you created.
On your iOS 14 home screen, you can use as many widgets as you want. Once you’ve added a widgetsmith size to your home screen, after a long-press, select “Edit Widget” and select the “Widget” option to choose from the multiple designs you created in the Widgetsmith app. In fact, every widget on your iOS 14 home screen can come from Widgetsmith if you want.
Widgetsmith also supports timed widgets, allowing you to change the widget on your home screen at certain times of the day. For example, you can display the current date until the end of the workday, then change widgets automatically to show what is on your calendar lender the next day.
Going viral
Since I started working on this story last week, Widgetsmith has exploded in popularity and topped the App Store charts. The customization and personalization options in Widgetsmith have proven to be incredibly popular, confirming not only the power of Widgetsmith but also additional iOS home screen customization options with the demand for paint-up.
The app has gone viral several times on Ticket OK, with WidgetSmith serving as the basis for Ticket OK walkthroughs on how to make your iOS 14 home screen, “Aesthetic AF.” In these ticket ok videos, you can see how powerful Widgetsmith is, and how creative iOS 14 users are with their home screen designs.
Implementing My Widgetsmith is much easier than a viral ticket ok video, but this is a great testament to the versatility of the app. Whether you want to use iOS 14 as a tool to create a specific “aesthetic” for the home screen or to add additional information to your home screen, it can tick all the necessary boxes. Again, there is also support for scheduling specific widgets by day.
For me, one limitation is that iOS 14 widgets will only launch the app where it was created. For instance, you can use the Activity Rings widget from Widgetsmith, but it will open data in the Widgetsmith app as opposed to the built-in iOS fitness app. This is typically the limit of iOS 14 instead of Widgetsmith, but that’s something I hope Apple will change in the future.
Widgetsmith is a free download on the App Store, with some features that require a subscription to the app at the server cost. The same subscription can be shared with Watch Chasmith, which lets you treat your Apple Pal watch just like your iOS 14 home screen.
Have you tried Widgetsmith on your iOS 14 home screen yet? What is your favorite design? Let us know in the comments below!
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