Pretty and practical: Widgets, your iPhone and iOS 14

iOS 14 is to the iPhone 12, what wine is to cheese - a dual serotonin hit. If you’ve got a new iPhone then you’ll be rocking the latest update, and probably playing with the most prominent upgrade. Widgets.

Of course widgets are nothing new to Android users who have been screaming about them for literal years, but now all you Apple fans can reap the benefits of a customisable home screen.

Even older iPhones can access the operating system upgrade and let’s be real, slapping a fresh coat of paint on an old brick can make it feel new again. In this guide we’re walking you through how to craft your perfect home screen.

WTF is a widget?

A widget is pretty much somewhere between an app button and fully opening the application. You’ll be able to see basic information at a glance such as a weather snapshot, upcoming reminders or recently played songs, but you won’t have the entire functionality without actually opening the app.

Ultimately you can see a bunch of your most frequented apps on just one page rather than flipping through them individually. It’s worth noting that not every app has an accompanying widget right now but the gallery will inevitably continue to grow as more users adopt the feature.

How to add widgets to your home screen

1. Make your widgets and apps jiggle by pressing and holding on a widget or blank space until they start to dance
2. Tap on the + button in the top left corner of the device
3. Pick a widget and it’s size
4. Tap Add Widget
5. Select Done

You can rearrange your widgets on your home screen by touching and holding the display until they jiggle. Then you’ll be able to slide and shuffle your widgets around the screen until the aesthetic is just right.

If it’s too difficult to choose your favourite widgets you can also create a Widget Stack which will cycle through a collection of widgets on the same position. To set these up you’ll just need to drag the widgets on top of each other while in jiggle-edit mode.

You could take this one step further and educate your stack with Smart Stack. Here Apple will automatically choose which widget will be visible based on location, time of day, and your viewing preferences. Follow the steps below to wisen up your stack.

1. Enter jiggle-edit mode by pressing and holding on the screen
2. Tap the + in the top left hand corner of the display
3. Scroll to Smart Stack
4. Set up like any other widget

OR if you’ve already got a stack setup you can simply long press on the stack, select Edit and toggle Smart Rotate on.

About that aesthetic?

If you’ve been frothing over the meticulously presented home screens littering your socials then you may be wondering how to pull it off yourself. 

Pinterest - the home of the aesthetic - created a new app called Widgetsmith which allows you to create beautiful widget covers. Within the app you can pick style, font, colours, or even upload a bespoke image for your apps.

It’s going to take some planning, but you can put together a range of small, medium and large widget covers to toggle through until your phone is truly Pinterest-worthy.

to select your aesthetically sound options instead. You can then toggle these into Stacks to actually be able to use your widgets practically - or don’t. Who am I to mess with your vibe man?

Customising app icons

To go the extra mile you can also replace default app icons with custom images that suit your aesthetic. 

Just for funsies, here is the least aesthetically pleasing custom job we've come across.

iOS 14 let’s you re-do app icons so naturally remade them all much worse in MS paint style

Sorry to all app icon designers that spent years making them nice pic.twitter.com/bsa0E5VvSy

— Thomas Reisenegger.gif (@Olima) September 20, 2020

There are some limitations on making these changes. The most major being:

• You'll end up launching Shortcuts before the actual app
• No more notification badges
• You have to create your images before starting the process

Of course if you're fine with these caveats you can create whatever you want, you'll just need to follow these steps.

1. Launch Shortcuts on your device
2. Select the + icon in the top right corner of the screen
3. Add action
4. Search for Open App and select Open App then tap Choose
5. Find the app you want to change the icon for and select, then Add to Home Screen
6. Tap the Placeholder app icon
7. From the menu, select your replacement image and rename the app as you'd like it to appear
8. Add

Anula Wiwatowska

Offsite Editorial Lead | Instagram

Anula is the Off-Site Editorial Lead for WhistleOut Australia, and an award winning tech journalist. She has been writing about the Australian telco industry, and consumer technology for over five years, and has been known to tell her Uber driver which phone they should upgrade to next.

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