With Apple’s iOS 14 update and continuing into iOS 17 devices came a new much-awaited feature for iPhone users: the ability to customize and personalize the phone’s home and lock screens, organizing them around a unified theme and color schemes.
Apple also gave widgets a fresh new look with different size options, interactivity, and an improved design that shows more information at a glance. While the iPhone has a collection of native widgets, several third-party apps provide an easy way to customize and edit widgets at will.
This article will help you find the best iPhone widgets for 2024 and show you how to create and add custom widgets.
Table of contents
- 1. Widgetsmith
- 2. Notion
- 3. ScreenKit
- 4. Launcher
- 5. Shortcuts
- 6. Smart Stack
- 7. Streaks
- 8. Battery Widget & Color Widgets
- 9. Fantastical Calendar
- 10. Fitness
- 11. Color Widgets
- 12. HeyWeather
- 13. Bears Countdown
- 14. Apple News
- 15. Notes
- 16. Widget Wizard
- 17. Clock Widget: Custom Clock App
- 18. Smart Battery Widget
- 19. Sports Alert
- 20. WhatsApp
- 21. Copilot Money
- 22. Flighty
- 23. Dark Noise
- 24. CARROT Weather
- 25. Calm
- 26. Widgy
- 27. TripIt: Travel Planner
- 28. Spotify
- 29. TickTick
- 30. Countdown
- How to add a widget to your iPhone’s home screen
- How to add a widget to your iPhone’s lock screen
- How to create a custom widget in iOS
- Conclusion
1. Widgetsmith
💲 Price: Free | Premium: $1.99 monthly
Widgetsmith is one of the most popular apps for your iPhone’s home and lock screens. It offers a great collection of customizable widgets and is one of the most popular apps for these screens. For example, you can dynamically schedule your custom widgets to show weather information in the morning and display the calendar during the workday. If you have an Apple Watch, you can also add the handy activity ring progress when exercising in the evening, and it seamlessly integrates with Apple Health.
2. Notion
💲 Price: Free | Personal Pro Monthly: $4.99
Notion is one of the best productivity apps you can find out there and one of the most intuitive to use. It has integrated AI to save time and effort in daily tasks. Collaborate in real time, add media, organize your information and plans, and sync everything between devices. Having Notion on your iPhone’s home screen is one of the best widget ideas we can think of when it comes to productivity and will make you easily access any workspace or information of your choosing. In addition, you can sync Notion with multiple apps using 2sync.
3. ScreenKit
💲 Price: Free | All App Icons & Widgets: $9.99
ScreenKit is a standout choice among the best widgets for iPhone in 2024, offering extensive customization for iPhone and iPad screens. With over 10 million users and 40,000 5-star reviews, this app lets users effortlessly personalize their home and lock screens with a wide range of themes, interactive widgets, and app icons. ScreenKit is user-friendly, requiring no additional apps or shortcuts for installation. Get the best widget ideas for your iPhone available in several categories, including a clock, countdown, battery, date, and calendar. It also features an icon change option to create custom app icons.
4. Launcher
💲 Price: Free | Pro Version: $2.99
Launcher is one of the most versatile widgets for the iPhone. It’s fully customizable and lets you quickly launch your favorite apps. You can also fine-tune it to call, message, email, access your favorite websites, and even kickstart FaceTime video calls on the Lock Screen or Dynamic Island. The app has the option to customize blur-simulated transparent background images and the ability to download them. You can also close the app after running specific launchers like music, background web, and built-in launchers.
5. Shortcuts
💲 Price: Free
As the name implies, the Shortcuts app helps you quickly access your favorite apps. With over 300 built-in actions that connect Contacts, Music, Photos, Reminders, Safari, and Health, among others, you can use it to create widgets that connect with your apps right on your iPhone’s home screen, including Siri commands.
6. Smart Stack
It comes preinstalled
Widget stacks are groups of widgets that can be easily flipped through on your iOS home screen and are natively included in the iPhone’s operating system. Think about it as a widget of widgets. The strongest point of Smart Stack is the ability to show information depending on your iPhone usage. For instance, it can display podcasts when you wish to catch up with them and show reminders of what you have pending on your device.
7. Streaks
💲 Price: $5.99
Streaks is an excellent habit-forming app for iPhone in 2024, ideal for anyone looking to build positive habits or break negative ones. It allows users to track up to 24 tasks daily and syncs seamlessly across devices via iCloud. The app supports adding its customizable widget to both the home and lock screens, enhancing accessibility and convenience.
With options for 78 color themes and over 600 task icons, users can personalize their experience extensively. Streaks also offers features like setting reminders, recording daily notes for tasks, and viewing detailed progress statistics, making it a powerful tool for sustaining good habits efficiently.
8. Battery Widget & Color Widgets
💲 Price: Free | Weekly subscription: $3.99
Take control of your iPhone’s performance with Battery Widget & Color Widgets. This versatile app provides essential system monitoring tools, empowering you to track battery health, optimize storage, understand memory usage, and stay connected. See it all at a glance with beautifully designed widgets that blend seamlessly with your iPhone’s home screen.
9. Fantastical Calendar
💲 Price: Free | Flexibits Premium: $6.99
This is one of the most beautiful widgets to show appointments and events scheduled throughout your day. The Fantastical Calendar widget can also show tasks and quickly take a look at upcoming events. Customize widgets to show the current date, add Zoom calls, your event lists for the day, or a monthly calendar. You can also combine widgets like the Event List and monthly calendars. The app is also available for Apple Watch, iPads, and the Apple Vision.
10. Fitness
💲 Price: Free
Along with the calendar and weather widgets preinstalled in iOS, Fitness is one of the best widget ideas for your iPhone, especially for those who put health and exercise at the top. A single widget can do more than you think to help you achieve your fitness goals since it will show you how many calories are left to burn in the day or how much more time you need to accomplish your goals. Using the Fitness widget, you won’t need to dive into the Health app to figure out how well you perform.
11. Color Widgets
💲 Price: Free | Pro: $2.99
Color Widgets lets you customize your iPhone’s home screen with various widgets and beautiful color themes. Each widget can be edited to detail, such as with the time, date, battery, and apps like Weather, Music, Calendar, and Reminders. Inspire yourself with custom app icons and get a wide variety of themes to match your liking. The Pro widget option offers even more capabilities to improve the user interface and think about new screen customization ideas.
12. HeyWeather
💲 Price: Free | 1 Month Subscription: $9.99
HeyWeather puts personalized weather forecasting at your fingertips! Get accurate forecasts, explore detailed weather maps, customize beautiful widgets for your home and lock screens, and stay ahead of the elements with notifications—all this and more, in a privacy-focused and ad-free app also in its free version. In addition, you can also keep track of rainfall on your Dynamic Island if your iPhone supports it.
13. Bears Countdown
💲 Price: Free | Bears Unlimited: $3.99
Do you want an app that reminds you of everything? Bears Countdown is a beautiful app with some cute widgets and hand-drawn artwork that will notify you of important dates. You can also write notes for each event and points for important work deadlines.
14. Apple News
💲 Price: Free | Apple News+ subscription: $12.99 per month
The Apple News widget is a great choice for those who like to stay up-to-date with the world’s current events. You can access hundreds of premium publications with one subscription to Apple News+. The app will also curate and personalize the stories to provide relevant and reliable news, including local news and in-depth sports coverage. The widgets will let you see the app’s popular and featured articles at a glance.
15. Notes
💲 Price: Free
Notes is a well-known built-in app for note-writing that includes images, checklists, scanned documents, handwritten notes, and sketches. It synchronizes with iCloud to keep every note accessible from any Apple device, including the iPad and the Vision Pro. You can customize the widget to show notes from a specific notebook and easily access them from the screen of your choice.
16. Widget Wizard
💲 Price: Free | Widget Wizard Pro: $3.99
Widget Wizard may not be the most popular app for creating widgets. However, if you need to get some of the best widget ideas for your iPhone’s home and lock screen, this is an excellent choice. You can use it to track your fitness goals, add a weather, agenda, calendar, clock, and reminders widget, and customize them in-depth. In addition, it’s multilingual, and you can completely create your theme with it.
17. Clock Widget: Custom Clock App
💲 Price: Free | Weekly Clock Widget: $1.99
Clock Widget lets you add and personalize beautiful and colorful digital clock widgets on your iPhone’s home screen. There are plenty of layout designs, backgrounds, and text colors to choose from, and you can add your own photos as a clock background.
18. Smart Battery Widget
💲 Price: Free
Are you tired of the iOS battery widget and its limitations? In that case, the Smart Battery Widget can help you. The widgets shown are stylish and beautiful and will give you precise information about your battery usage and how much you have left depending on your activities, such as watching videos or playing games. You can also check storage and network data, including volume and speeds.
19. Sports Alert
💲 Price: Free | Remove Ads for 1 month: $0.99 | Remove Ads for 1 year: $4.99
This is a must-have app for sports fans and those following the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, and more. You can easily get real-time scores with various widgets you can add to your iPhone’s home screen. You can even get live stat updates in your icon badge and know sports data points without opening the app. Also, you will get notified instantly after an important event, such as a goal, touchdown, or run. It also offers Live Activities with Dynamic Island support.
20. WhatsApp
💲 Price: Free
Often overlooked, the popular messaging service WhatsApp offers its own widgets to quickly and directly speak to the people you communicate with the most. The widget integrates seamlessly with the icons of your other apps and is one of the best widgets you can have on your iPhone’s home screen if you use it frequently.
21. Copilot Money
💲 Price: Free | Monthly subscription: $13.00
Copilot Money, a 2023 App Store Awards finalist, is your essential personal finance companion. It simplifies money management directly from your iPhone. With intuitive widgets, you can quickly glance at your finances, securely tracking spending, investments, and budgets. Designed for iOS and Mac, this powerful tool offers a one-month free trial to help you handle your financial life.
22. Flighty
💲 Price: Free | Monthly subscription: $5.99
Flighty is one of the best iPhone widgets if you or any of your loved ones fly frequently. With Dynamic Island and Live Activities support, you can see live flights directly on your lock and home screen. Get the industry’s fastest delay alerts, track planes in real-time, and effortlessly follow friends’ and family’s flights. Enjoy automated updates with calendar and email sync, taking the stress out of flying.
23. Dark Noise
💲 Price: Free | Monthly subscription: $2.99
Are you looking for ambient sounds? Dark Noise is here. Experience soothing ambient soundscapes with 50 built-in options and the power to create your own custom mixes. Enjoy ultimate convenience with widgets, a space-saving Mini Player, and customizable themes (including True Black) for the perfect ambiance.
24. CARROT Weather
💲 Price: Free | Premium: $4.99
Another excellent weather app! CARROT Weather delivers accurate forecasts with a hilariously twisted personality. Choose your favorite AI companion for an entertaining weather experience. Enjoy customizable themes, interactive widgets, and Live Activities support for up-to-the-minute updates. CARROT Weather prioritizes privacy and offers a Premium Club option for those who want additional weather data sources, notifications, and full customization power.
25. Calm
💲 Price: Free (limited) | Annual subscription: $69.99
Calm is your ultimate mindfulness companion. Explore calming meditations, sleep-inducing stories narrated by familiar voices, relaxing music, and breathing exercises–easily accessible through helpful widgets. Designed for beginners and experienced meditators alike, Calm helps you reduce stress, improve sleep, and find more focus throughout your day.
26. Widgy
💲 Price: Free | Unlock slots: $5.99
Design truly unique widgets with Widgy that perfectly match your aesthetic, display essential information, and make your home and lock screens reflect your style. With an intuitive editor, a vast array of elements, data sources (system info, weather, and more), and endless customization options, Widgy lets you unleash your creativity. Plus, you can easily share your creations or find inspiration within the thriving Widgy community.
27. TripIt: Travel Planner
💲 Price: Free | Pro (1 Year): $48.99
TripIt helps you organize the chaos that often comes with travel planning. This top-rated app automatically creates comprehensive itineraries from your emailed booking confirmations, syncs your travel plans with your calendar, and can even share them. Thanks to interactive widgets, you can see your next trip and planning details at a glance on your home screen. No more frantic searches for flight information or hotel confirmations. TripIt keeps it all in one spot, even offline.
28. Spotify
💲 Price: Free | Premium: $10.99 a month
Spotify makes a world of music and podcasts easy to access. Discover new favorites, build playlists, or stream expertly curated mixes. Enjoy personalized recommendations and exclusive content. Plus, get instant access to your recently played music and favorite playlists with its convenient widgets, which put your tunes directly on your home screen.
29. TickTick
💲 Price: Free | Premium: $3.99/month
TickTick is a powerful task management that can help you organize your personal and professional life with an intuitive interface. Get reminders, create checklists, and collaborate seamlessly, all with the convenience of customizable widgets and the powerful new Live Activity integration. Pin essential tasks directly to your lock screen for effortless focus.
30. Countdown
💲 Price: Free | Widget: $3.99
Countdown makes tracking important dates and events a breeze. Add birthdays, holidays, vacations, and more. Then, see them count down in real time right on your home screen, thanks to handy widgets. Never miss a special occasion again with customizable countdowns, reminders, and fun backgrounds.
How to add a widget to your iPhone’s home screen
Follow these easy steps to add a widget to your iPhone’s home screen:
- Touch and hold an empty area on your screen until your apps jiggle and show minus symbols (-).
- Tap the Plus sign (+) in the upper-left corner.
- Tap on the widget you want to add. Swipe left and right to choose its size and shape.
- Tap Add Widget.
- Once you’ve added the widget, tap anywhere on the home screen to leave the edit mode.
When you tap a widget for the first time, you may be asked to adjust its features. To move the widget around or to a different screen, press it for a while until it starts shaking, and then move it where you want to place it.
The Smart Stack, as we’ve seen before, will also give you popular widget ideas for your iPhone, like Notes that you use frequently, Memories from the Photos app, Calendar events, or the local weather. Everything you need to know can be added as widgets to your home and lock screens.
How to add a widget to your iPhone’s lock screen
iOS 16 and later give you the power to customize your lock screen with handy widgets. However, not every app offers lock screen widgets. You need to look for the apps that have been created or updated to support this functionality. Here’s how to add them:
- Press and hold on your iPhone’s lock screen until the Customize button appears.
- Tap Customize.
- Select the Lock Screen you’d like to edit.
- Tap the rectangular area below the clock labeled Add Widgets.
- Browse the available widgets by scrolling or tapping on specific apps.
- Tap on a widget to add it to the designated lock screen area.
- Some widgets offer different sizes and options. Tap and hold a widget to customize as desired. Reposition widgets by dragging them within the widget area.
- When happy with your setup, tap OK in the top right corner.
How to create a custom widget in iOS
You need custom widgets to edit your app icons. Apps like Widgetsmith and Color Widgets are some of the most popular options. You can use these apps to create and customize your widgets. Choose what information they will display, fonts, colors, borders, and more. Once you’ve created your widgets, they can be added to your home screen.
- Tap and hold an empty area of your home screen until your apps jiggle.
- Tap the Plus sign (+) in the upper left part of the screen to add a widget.
- Select the Widgetsmith, Color Widgets app or any editable widgets app of your choice.
- Select the size of the widget.
- Tap Add Widget.
- Place the widget on the home screen, and while still in jiggle mode, tap it to change its options.
- Tap Done in the upper right part to exit.
There are limits to what you can do with custom widgets. Nonetheless, the capabilities of these apps continue to increase with recent updates.
Conclusion
With iOS 14, Apple allowed users to customize the layout of the iPhone’s home screen to some extent. Instead of just repositioning icons, you can remove them thanks to the new App Library. Then, fill the home and lock screens with something other than just apps using the new widgets.
Moreover, iOS 16 revamped the lock screen to add widgets, and you can now add interactive widgets on iOS 17 devices.
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