Everything you need to know about widgets and the smart stack (iPhone and iPad)

On iPhone and iPad, since versions 14 of iOS and iPadOS, it is possible to take advantageimproved widgets. Unlike old widgets, they can be added to the home screen, which gives rise to great customization possibilities, thanks to third-party apps like Widgetsmith,presented here.

Let's see in detail how these widgets work and their particularities.

How to add an enhanced widget

• Go to the Today view and scroll down to the “Edit” option
• Press the “+” at the top left

• Or in the home screen, keep pressing an application and choose “Modify home screen” before pressing the “+”

• Choose one of the widgets

• Depending on the widget chosen, different types of displays are offered, generally small, medium and large, then select the desired one

• Validate by pressing “Add widget” then “OK”

The chosen widget has now been added, either to the “Today” view or to the Home screen.

It can be dragged to position it in a specific location and even moved between Today view and the Home screen by holding the finger and the widget towards the edge of the screen, left or right. right according to the intended target (Today view or home screen).

Special case of the intelligent battery

The smart battery is aset of several widgets in one. Its particularity is as follows: by sliding your finger up or down, it is possible to display another widget among those it contains.

How to create a smart stack

To add a smart stack widget to the Today view or on its home screen, simply follow the same procedure as explained above for adding a widget, then choose the “Scroll” widget clever".

Alternatively, in the Today view or on the home screen, you can drag a classic widget onto another, which will result inautomatically create a smart widget (formerly named smart stack by Apple).

How do I remove a widget from the smart stack?

• Hold a long press on the smart battery
• Choose “Edit Stack”

• Press the small “-” at the top left of the widget to remove from the smart stack
• Validate by pressing “Delete”

How to add a widget in smart stack

It is a priori possible to addany widgetin the smart stack. Here's how:

• Add the widget of interest to the home screen or Today view, in the classic way
• Long press on the widget, as if you would like to move it
• Slide it onto the smart battery so that the latter integrates it. Please note, this only works if you choose widgets of the same size

How to remove a widget in smart stack

• Edit a smart stack
• Find the widget to unseat
• Long press on it and slide it out of the stack

Other Smart Battery settings

The smart battery offers the following settings:

• Rotation intelligente: by making a long press on the smart battery, followed by selecting the “Modify battery” option, you can activate or deactivate smart rotation. When it is active, iOS automatically offers the widget most likely to be useful at a given time of the day, at a specific location and according to user data collected by the artificially intelligent Siri (like the smart suggestions from Siri displayed during Spotlight search)
• Suggestions de widgets :activated, this option will automatically include widgets in the stack, intelligently, depending on the time of day, your habits, your location
• Widget order: note that it is possible to change the order of these. To do this, simply drag the widget corresponding to the desired position using a long press

Other details about the new widgets

It should be noted that widgets are somewhat limited, in that they do notdo not allow rapid actions. For example, a long press on the Photos widget will not allow anything in particular, unlike the Photos app icon which can display different shortcuts using Force Touch.

Otherwise, all third-party apps will notunfortunately do not necessarily offer widgets. It depends on the developers.

Are you a fan of these widgets on your Home Screen pages?

• Find all our iOS and macOS tutorials here

Editor-in-chief for iPhon.fr. Pierre is like Indiana Jones, looking for the lost iOS trick. Also a long-time Mac user, Apple devices hold no secrets for him. Contact: pierre[a]iphon.fr.