After years of waiting, widgets on the iPhone finally have buttons, thanks to iOS 17’s new interactive widgets feature. You can finally perform simple tasks like resuming a podcast or checking off a to-do in Reminders without opening an app. Not exactly revolutionary, but incredibly useful for someone whose iPhone is filled with widgets.
But that’s not where the usefulness ends: Many developers have found ways to extend this functionality to bring in new features right to the iPhone home screen. You can now set up a focus session, calculate, convert units, follow your calendar, and track habits, all without opening an app.
Fantastical
From left to right: Fantastical, Calendar 17, and TickTick widgets
Credit: Khamosh Pathak
Fantastical is already one of the best calendar apps on the iPhone, and its new interactive widgets make it even better. You can have a simple calendar view where you can switch between months from the top, or you can have a detailed calendar that will show you appointments for each, as you switch between days from the top. It’s immensely useful, and doesn’t require a Premium subscription.
Calculator 17
There used to be a time when I always had a calculator widget in the Today view. This was before the days of Home Screen widgets. Now, that time is back, and I can finally perform simple calculations when splitting bills, or tallying invoices, directly from the iPhone Home Screen.
The Calculator 17 app brings an ad-free and customizable calculator experience to the iPhone’s Home Screen. You can edit the colors, and the theme of the calculator as well.
TickTick
The Reminders app has a really nice widget now that lets you complete to-dos right from the home screen. But if you want some more functionality, like calendar integration, and cross-platform syncing, TickTick is a great choice.
And now, with the iOS 17 update, TickTick too lets you tick off tasks right from the Home Screen widgets (this is something that Todoist still doesn’t have).
Lock Launcher
From left to right: Lock Launcher, Overcast, and Streaks widgets.
Credit: Khamosh Pathak
Lock Launcher started out as a way to launch apps from the lock screen widgets. But now that home screen widgets are interactive, it finds a place on your home screen as well, as a great customizable alternative to adding app icons to the Home Screen. A single Lock Launcher widget can display 20 app icons, without labels.
This solves the problem of choosing between widgets and apps on the Home Screen. Now, you can have 12 apps at the bottom of the Home Screen, with two medium-sized widgets at the top. Everything in the app is customizable, from the size of the app icons, to the widget skins.
Overcast
Overcast serves as a great iOS-only alternative to Apple’s Podcasts app. It’s fast, sleek, and filled with podcast-enhancing features. Now, with iOS 17, it offers new widgets that let you quickly resume a podcast.
What I really like is Overcast’s Large widget, which shows multiple recently played and recently added episodes so that you can start playing a new episode from the home screen with just a tap.
Streaks
Streaks ($5.99) is a no-nonsense habit tracker that won an Apple Design Award back in 2016. It’s quite simple: You have multiple pages, and you create habits that you want to form. Each habit has an icon, and some can be tracked automatically.
You open the app, press and hold on an icon, and the habit is tracked. Now, with the app’s iOS 17 widgets, you can track a habit directly from the Home Screen.
Focus
From left to right: Focus, Zenitizer, and Widgetsmith widgets.
Credit: Khamosh Pathak
Focus is a Pomodoro app that will let you start, pause, and track all your focused work sessions directly from the widget. You can also use this widget to quickly add tasks, and monitor them.
Zenitizer
If you practice mindfulness meditation and want to track your silent sittings, Zenitizer is a must-have. The app will let you set a timer, with internal bells, and background sound, and it will provide insights on your practice as well.
The app’s widget is also quite cool. You can start one of your preset meditation, and follow along with the timer, and the intervals, without even opening the app.
Widgetsmith
Widgetsmith is a popular widget customization app, and it has added a couple of interesting new interactive widgets for iOS 17. Some free widgets let you scroll between music album covers, and photos from your library. Then there are a couple of widgets only available if you subscribe to the Premium plan.
I found the calendar widget to be quite useful. You can switch between days of the week from the top to see all your appointments without ever opening the Calendar app. And because this is Widgetsmith, you can customize the color and theme of the widget as well.
