Widgets are powerful tools that show snippets of only the most important information or feature of an app. Widgets are like Cliff Notes for a book you didn’t want to read in middle school, but have to write an entire book report on in one day. You skip all the fluff and get only the good stuff. iOS has a bunch of really great stock widgets, but don’t limit yourself to just those options. Here are 10 useful widgets for your iPhone or iPad.
1. Snapchat
If you’re under the age of 30, you probably use Snapchat to send pictures to your friends rather than sending it over a text. While Snapchat’s popularity has declined a bit due to Instagram coming out with Instagram stories, Snapchat is still the go-to if you want to send a video of you doing something stupid to your best friend. This widget shows the Bitmojis of your three best friends on Snapchat and lets you quickly snap them a picture or video by tapping on their avatar.
2. ESPN
Do you have a favorite sports team that you follow throughout the season? I do. I got to suffer through an entire season of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers being a dumpster fire the entire season. The ESPN widget displays the score of your favorite team, which you can set in the ESPN app. You can view other teams scores by tapping show more.
3. ESPN Fantasy
It’s amazing how much people love Fantasy Football. It’s all people talk about at work. Once football season is over, what else are you supposed to talk about? All jokes aside, whether it’s football, baseball, or basketball, this widget is great to see how your team is stacking up against your opponent. It’s important to know when you’re winning so you can throw some shade over at your opponent to let him/her know how inferior their team is. You can view the rest of your leagues by tapping show more.
4. Waze
Waze is a community based traffic navigation app used as an alternative to Google Maps or iOS Maps. If you have a friend that only uses Waze, it means they hate waiting in traffic and don’t mind taking obscure routes to get home in order to save two minutes. The Waze community is huge and it’s easy to keep up to date with car accidents on the road or a police speed trap up ahead. The Waze widget allows you to quickly get directions to your house or work by tapping on the desired location’s icon. You can quickly open up the app by tapping Other to get directions to a different location.
5. Google Traffic
Google Maps is the most popular navigation app. The Google Traffic widget is great for seeing the current traffic around your area. This can help you decide if it’s better to wait out traffic or check to see if there is a less congested route home.
6. Timeglass
The stock timer and stopwatch feature on the iPhone is pretty limited with it’s capability. You can’t have multiple timers at the same time. This is where Timeglass is the perfect third-party addition. The Timeglass widget allows you to view all active timers and stopwatches that you have going so you keep track of multiple things at the same time.
7. Google Keep
Google Keep is my favorite to-do app. I like the simple it is to use. It’s as simple as writing something down on a Sticky Note. The Google Keep widget allows you to access shortcut functions such as creating a new note, creating a new list, taking a photo, making a drawing, or recording audio.
8. MyFitnessPal
Are you looking to shed a few pounds? Maybe looking to bulk up for the winter? Let me give you some advice, the easiest way to lose or gain weight is to track calories. It’s simple science. MyFitnessPal is the best calorie tracker available because its food database is huge. Anything that has a barcode will have its nutritional information in MyFitnessPal. The widget shows a brief summary of the calories remaining for your day.
9. Google Assistant
Tired of Siri? Me too. She never fails to mess up what I tell her. If you’re looking to breakup with Siri, you should check out Google Assistant. The Google Assistant widget is a shortcut to quickly open up the app allowing you to ask anything you want.
10. Coinbase
If I had a dollar for every time someone has talked to me about Bitcoin, I would have enough money to buy one Bitcoin. Everyone loves to talk about how awesome their Bitcoin stock is doing and how much money they’ve made without being able to explain what a blockchain is. If you’re looking to gamble and have some fun, the easiest way to do it is through Coinbase. Coinbase is a secure online platform for buying, selling, and trading digital currency. The digital currency Coinbase offers is Ethereum, Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash. The Coinbase widget lets you keep track of the prices just like the Stocks app. With the volatility of cryptocurrency, you’re probably looking at prices a lot, which makes the widget super useful.
These are our favorite widgets to use. You don’t have to use all of them. That’s the beauty of widgets. It’s totally customizable and up to your own preference. If you only want to have one widget or ten, it’s really up to you. Let us know below if we missed out on any great widgets.