Intro to Widgets! iPhone Friday
Channel: Bills iPhone Tips
Date: 2020-10-11

From http://billsklodowski.com -  More useful, powerful tips and tricks for using the latest iPhone and iPad software update - iOS 14 - on your devices. This week, we’re ready to dive in to one of the biggest, boldest, most noticeable changes iOS 14 brings to your device: widgets!

What’s a widget? You’ve seen them before, but probably haven’t used them to full effect on your iPhone or iPad. I know I haven’t! Before iOS 14, you always had the ability to “swipe” from left to right on your home screen, and go past the first “home” screen. 

This took you to a page-full of widgets. These were (and are still) little mini versions of apps. They can give you a quick view of specific kinds of information, depending on the app / widget being used. Some of the more popular ones were for weather, or for stocks. You could see how your Apple stock was doing with just a glance at the widget, without opening a full-fledged app.

Now that functionality has been (in my opinion) improved upon and moved front-and-center for your device when you update to iOS 14. Those widgets can now be placed on ANY of your iPhone or iPad’s “home” screens, so you don’t have to go hunting for them. 

Also, widgets come in several different sizes. You’ve probably seen the TV commercials or online videos that show square, rectangular and almost full-screen widgets on an iPhone, showing off all kinds of information. You can choose the size of the widget, and place it anywhere you like. Super helpful! 

Now that widgets are definitely becoming “a thing,” lots more app developers (software writers) are creating new and better widgets for their regular iPhone / iPad apps. You’ll be seeing more and more over time, with more and more cool functions. 

For now, some of the more popular widgets show you information such as: you latest / upcoming calendar appointments and reminders, you latest incoming email messages, your latest Notes (from the iOS Notes app, one of our favorites), and lots more.

In this video, I’ll show you how to get started with widgets. Where to find all the new ones, how to select the size of the widget you want, and how to place it on one your iPhone or iPads home screens. How to delete it too, if you change your mind. 

There’s lots more to learn about widgets and more of the cool new features and functions in iOS 14. We’ll be using both the What’s New Wednesday and iPhone Friday videos to show-and-tell about them in the coming weeks. Stay tuned! 

Remember also: you can get a free weekly "Recap" email telling you all about the past week's videos, and a link to download the free "class handout" to show you exactly how to do it what we show on the videos (usually the iPhone Friday video, but sometimes both the weekly videos have handouts.) 

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