As the release of iOS 16 approached, I felt a strong sense of déjà vu. TestFlight betas with Lock Screen widgets came pouring in. It felt like 2020’s debut of Home Screen widgets all over again. This time, though, those betas have been all well-nigh Lock Screen widgets.
As Federico covered in his iOS 16 review, Apple’s tideway to Lock Screen widget support in its own apps is variegated than its tideway to Home Screen widgets was. There are far fewer Lock Screen widgets misogynist for system apps than there were when Home Screen widgets were launched with iOS 14. Part of the difference is undoubtedly considering Lock Screen widgets are smaller and monochrome, but there remain gaps that aren’t so hands explained away. Fortunately for us, third-party developers have stepped into the violate with a long list of innovative widgets.
With so many choices and only three to five Lock Screen widget slots to fill, it’s nonflexible to know where to start, so I’ve compiled a list of my top recommendations from the over 40 I’ve tried so far. Of course, this list doesn’t include the apps I once covered last week, but it goes without saying that Widgetsmith, Lock Screen One, LockFlow, and CARROT Weather would be moreover be included in this list if I hadn’t once written well-nigh them.
Link HUB
Link HUB offers all three varieties of widgets.
The name says it all. Link HUB lets you put links on your iOS 16 Lock Screen. Links can be URLs that unshut websites or URL schemes that unshut and tenancy apps. You can moreover use the app’s widgets to do things like start FaceTime calls or waif into your favorite Messages thread. What I love well-nigh Link HUB is that it harnesses the power of the web to expand what Lock Screen widgets can do. In the screenshot above, I’ve got an inline widget to unshut the Club MacStories website, a rectangular widget that runs a shortcut that turns off my bedside lamp, and two circular widgets, one that opens the MacStories homepage and the other that opens the Shortcuts app.
Launcher
Launcher.
Launcher is an app that’s been virtually for a very long time, helping iPhone users automate a long list of tasks by reducing increasingly ramified tasks into single-tap launchers. With the introduction of the app’s Lock Screen widgets, it can now launch apps, run shortcuts, play music, undeniability friends and family, start driving directions, and a lot increasingly directly from your Lock Screen. One of the nicest touches of the app is that Launcher comes with over 3000 icon options for its widgets, far increasingly than your stereotype app, which makes it easy to pick a glyph that’s meaningful to you. I’ve set up Launcher in the screenshot whilom to turn on the lights in my office with an inline widget. The other three widgets from left to right start a playlist of songs I’ve marked as ‘loved’ in World Music, unshut my iMessage thread with my wife Jennifer, and launch the Halide camera app.
Home Widget
Start traps and HomeKit scenes with Home Widget.
Lock Screen widgets are a natural extension of Home Widget, an spanking-new HomeKit automation app. The app offers a single circular widget that can tenancy HomeKit accessories, trigger scenes, and more. My one wish for the app is for it to add an inline widget, but I expect four circular widgets will fulfill most people’s needs anyway. In the screenshot above, I’ve got widgets to tenancy a security camera, a light strip on my balcony, and two others for lamps in my office and living room.
Just Press Record
Just Press Record’s widget for starting a recording.
Just Press Record offers one circular widget, but it captures the essence of the app nicely. Just Press Record has unchangingly been well-nigh quickly capturing audio, so having a sawed-off on the Lock Screen that starts a new recording is perfect. Tap the widget, and the app opens and starts recording immediately. That’s it, but it’s a unconfined example of deep linking into an app’s cadre functionality in a way that enhances Just Press Record’s utility.
Apollo
Apollo’s strength is using Lock Screen widgets to link to your favorite parts of the app.
Christian Selig has created a unconfined mix of Lock Screen widgets that take wholesomeness of deep linking into Apollo, withal with some fun stats. First, the stats. Apollo can track the loftiness you’ve scrolled in the app, and oh boy, it adds up fast. If you want to see just how far you’ve scrolled, you can, with a circular widget that will remind you every time you squint at your Lock Screen.
Apollo goes a lot further, though. There’s moreover a rectangular widget that shows a trending post and widgets that exhibit your Reddit Karma score, the number of unread items in your inbox that opens your inbox, stats well-nigh the performance of your most recent post, and flipside for the performance of your most recent comment. There are moreover widgets that will unshut a favorite subreddit or a random one. Also, Apollo offers an inline widget for your scroll distance, Karma score, or inbox count. It’s a lot of variety that makes it easy to track Reddit from your Lock Screen and waif into variegated parts of Apollo.
Overcast
I love Overcast’s Recents and Playlist widgets.
I can run a lot of the errands that I need to get washed-up each week on foot. It’s a unconfined time to listen to podcasts, but considering many of the trips are short, I’m jumping in and out of the same episode multiple times some days. With Overcast’s new Recents Lock Screen widget, I can resume an episode with a single tap, which I love. The other widget I like a lot is Playlist, which lets you pick one of your Overcast playlists, and with a tap, waif into it directly to start listening. The third widget Overcast offers is the app’s icon, which simply launches the app from an inline or circular widget.
MusicBox
MusicBox’s Lock Screen widgets can list your recently-saved albums and tracks, or use ShazamKit to add songs you hear virtually you.
MusicBox, the app by Marcos Tanaka for saving links to World Music albums and songs, has two Lock Screen widgets. One lists music you’ve recently saved for listening to later, which is nice, but it’s the circular Add Music widget that is the increasingly interesting of the two. Add Music uses the ShazamKit framework to quickly add music to your listen-later queue by listening to what’s playing virtually you. If you hear a song you like, tap the widget, and it opens MusicBox’s Shazam UI and starts listening. Once the song is recognized, MusicBox asks you to personize and lets you save the URL to your queue. The whole process is so simple and fast that I plan to use this widget a lot.
Things
Things thoughtfully allows users to add tasks and track their completion.
A lot of task managers have widow Lock Screen widget support, but I like Things’ combination of widgets the best. There’s a rectangular widget that shows you three tasks from any of your lists with the worthiness to filter by tags and designate whether tapping the widget goes to your inbox, the current list, or does nothing. There are moreover two circular widgets. The first opens the UI to add a new to-do, and the second tracks your task completion progress filling in the whirligig virtually the checkmark as you trammels things off your Today list. The add New To-Do widget is moreover misogynist as an inline widget. With three widgets that utilize all of the misogynist types, Things lets you add tasks, see what’s up next, and track your progress all at once, which is a thoughtful combination that I haven’t seen other apps do.
Parcel
Package tracking is the sort of glanceable information that’s perfect for Lock Screen widgets.
Package tracking app Parcel has highly customizable rectangular and circular widgets for tracking your deliveries. The rectangular widget has the wholesomeness of displaying the item you’re tracking and its status. However, tapping on both without subtracting one to your Lock Screen lets you configure multiple options. My favorite is the worthiness to pin a wordage to the Lock Screen instead of just showing the next delivery, which is the default. There are moreover options to transpiration the widget’s verisimilitude scheme and to specify if the app opens to its main view or to the detail view of your package.
Countdowns
The strength of Countdowns’ Lock Screen widgets is the worthiness to customize what and how it’s displayed.
Like Parcel, Countdowns does a fantastic job of matching glanceable information with thoughtful options. The app is perfect for widgets considering it’s all well-nigh counting lanugo the time surpassing a big day you want to remember. The app utilizes all three types of widgets, mixing and matching descriptions of the event you’re counting lanugo to the remaining time surpassing the event and graphs of the time left surpassing the event. There are options to pick the next upcoming event, a specific event, or a random one, as well as whether to include the percentage of time passed on your warm-up in the widgets that include a graph.
FitnessView
FitnessView lets you get far increasingly specific with its health and fitness widgets than Apple’s Worriedness app.
FitnessView, the health and fitness tracker from Funn Media, allows users to track a wide variety of metrics compared to Apple’s own Fitness app tracker. In wing to Worriedness tracking like Apple’s app, you can track specific goals you’ve set up in the FitnessView app using a combination of progress indicators, values, and iconography, which is a nice way to focus on a specific goal.
Funn Media does a similarly nice job with its apps WaterMinder and Calory, which are specific to tracking your hydration and calorie intake, respectively. Both apps have multiple ways to log and track your goals, which helps alimony your efforts to stay hydrated and regulate your calorie intake front of mind.
Tempo
Tempo lets you track your total running and walking loftiness over multiple periods and track progress towards your goals.
Tempo has really expanded over the past year or so. The tracking app for runners and walkers offers lots of ways to track distances logged over variegated periods of time. Tempo moreover has a widget for goal tracking and a bar orchestration of your last seven days of logged mileage. I’m in the early stages of getting when to running without my knee surgery last spring, and having widgets to remind me of my progress and goals is one of the ways I plan to stay motivated and on track.
Tripsy
Tracking activities and flights with Tripsy.
When you’re traveling, there’s unchangingly something to alimony track of, whether it’s your next dinner reservation, tickets to an event, or a flight. Travel-planning app Tripsy lets you put that kind of information on your Lock Screen for quick reference with two rectangular, one circular, and one inline Lock Screen widget. The rectangular widgets track your next three scheduled activities for your trip and your next flight, respectively. The circular widget lets you unshut Tripsy into a specific category for your trip’s activities, and the in-line widget displays the next worriedness on your schedule.
Contact Widgets
Contact Widget is a unconfined way to set up a ‘speed dial’ for contacts.
Contacts Widgets lets you assign widgets to people whose information you’ve saved in Apple’s Contacts app. The widgets are designed in the Contact Widgets app and are then misogynist when you customize your Lock Screen widgets. You’ve got multiple options to create widgets that will place a voice or FaceTime undeniability to a contact or waif you into a Messages thread with them. For each widget, you can assign an image for your contact, name, and whether the widget includes a preliminaries or not. The self-ruling version of the app lets you create three widgets. An In-App Purchase is misogynist for unlimited widgets but currently isn’t misogynist in the app.
One of the things I’ve been coming when to time and then as I test Lock Screen widgets is something Federico said in his iOS 16 review:
Widgets on the Lock Screen are the ones that were meant to be glanceable, not the ones from two years ago.
I agree, and like Federico, I want increasingly Lock Screen widgets as a result. It’s not an easy diamond problem to solve without obscuring wallpapers, but subtracting the worthiness to replace the flashlight and camera widgets and perhaps making the widget row swipeable would be good places to start.
Until then, I plan to create increasingly custom Lock Screens. Some will be tied to Focus modes, but most I’ll just switch to most of them manually because, as I explained on this week’s episode of AppStories, creating lots of Focus modes becomes counterproductive fast.
Of course, this is just the whence of our coverage of Lock Screen widgets. Since whence this story, I’ve got a trademark new pile of widgets to test and will be writing well-nigh the weightier ones here, as well as the App Debuts section of MacStories Weekly for Club MacStories members.
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