widgets

Best free weather apps for iPhone and iPad in 2023

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The Best Weather Apps
There are SO MANY weather apps to choose from, but these are the best free ones.
Image: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac

In a world with about 10,000 weather apps — that’s an actual estimate, not a huge exaggeration — how do you choose the best free weather app for iPhone or iPad that you can trust and that includes the features you want most? It’s not easy. But a mix of full-featured free weather apps (most with premium versions) and specialty apps can cover all the bases for you.

We’ll go over some of the best weather apps below, whether you just want to avoid getting wet or if you’re a total weather freak who can’t get enough data, visual or otherwise.

A Time Machine widget for your Mac desktop [Awesome Apps]

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Backup Status
Get simple desktop widgets for monitoring Time Machine.
Image: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
Awesome Apps

Backup Status is a simple app that puts a Time Machine widget on your Mac desktop (or stows it away in your Notification Center). If you don’t want the Time Machine icon cluttering up your menu bar, this is a straightforward alternative.

Time Machine, of course, is Apple’s software that makes continuous backups of your files to a separate part of your disk, an external hard drive or network-attached storage. Everyone should use Time Machine.

And, after you set it up, you should try Backup Status, the fun little app that lets you easily monitor your Time Machine backups.

Hands on with interactive widgets in iOS 17

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Hands on with interactive widgets in iOS 17
iOS 17 will include home screen widgets with buttons and other controls.
Graphic: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

A long-requested feature is finally coming to iOS 17: interactive widgets. With these, you can control apps on the device directly from the convenience of the home screen.

iOS 17 is still in beta so not everyone has access to the new feature yet. I do, so here is what it’s like to use it on an iPhone (and iPad, too.)

Not just you: Apple Weather is mucked up [Updated]

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Not just you: Apple Weather is mucked up
Is this happening to you, too?
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

If the Weather widget on your iPhone says, “No weather available,” you’re in good company. Apple reports that its weather service has been having a problem since Monday.

It’s affecting some but not all users.

Update: Apple says the problems were resolved early Wednesday morning.

Sketchy rumor claims iOS 16 will bring interactive Home screen widgets

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iOS 16 interactive widgets
It could be a massive Home screen upgrade.
Image: LeaksApplePro

Apple could finally make widgets interactive in iOS 16, allowing you to control music playback, toggle your flashlight, adjust display brightness, and lots more right from your Home screen.

The new widgets are codenamed “InfoShack” internally, according to a sketchy new rumor that promises more details are on the way.

Get 10 useful iPhone tips and tricks straight from Apple

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Get 10 useful iPhone tips and tricks straight from Apple
Even long-time iPhone users might discover something new in this list of tips and tricks.
Photo: Apple

Apple Support premiered on Wednesday a video with helpful iPhone tips. Sit back, take a few minutes and learn something new you can do with your handset.

With ten tips — plus bonus ones — there’s sure to be something here you didn’t know.

Home Widget is the HomeKit widget Apple doesn’t make [Review]

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Home Widget review
Home Widget lets you make your own HomeKit widgets.
Photo: Clément Marty

With Home Widget, it’s now possible to control your HomeKit accessories directly from your iPhone’s Home screen. Turn on and off lights or even run automated scenes with the quick push of a button. With the new app, you can make a bunch of HomeKit widgets to meet your needs.

I put Home Widget to the test in my smart house. I’m generally pleased with its usability.

iOS and iPadOS 15 let devs hide sensitive info in lock screen widgets

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iOS 15 lets devs hide lock screen widgets
Keeping your data safe.
Image: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

iOS and iPadOS 15 give app developers the ability to hide sensitive information in lock screen widgets until a device has been unlocked.

The change is part of an upgrade to the WidgetKit framework, first introduced in iOS and iPadOS 14 last year, and will be particularly useful for things like banking and budgeting apps.

iOS 14 widgets changed the way I use my iPhone

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iOS 14 widgets changed the way I use my iPhone.
With iOS 14, my iPhone home screen is primarily a place to put widgets.
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

After a decade with an iPhone, I didn’t expect anything could come along to transform the way I use my phone. iOS 14 widgets proved me wrong. They have me interacting with the handset in a way I never have before.

Spotify gets an iOS 14 widget that lets you access recent listens

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Spotify
Spotify makes it easier to access your music and podcasts.
Photo: Spotify

If Spotify remains your main streaming music listening platform, there’s some good news: the streaming giant has finally released an iOS 14 widget that lets you quickly access recently played artists, podcasts, and albums in a single tap.

There are both small and medium-sized versions of the widget. The smaller of these shows your most recently listened to item. Meanwhile, the medium-sized widget offers a more luxurious, five most recent items array.

Concept shows how cool iPhone widgets would look on iPad

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iPad widgets deserve the freedom to move.
iPadOS limits Home screen widget placement. A concept artist shows there’s no reason for this limitation.
Photo: A Better Computer Trailer

While Home screen widgets came to iPad first, the release of iOS 14 offered iPhone users much more flexibility in widget placement. A concept designer showed what iPadOS 15 could look like with the same flexibility.

How to use some of the best new features in iOS 14

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How to use the best features in iOS 14
Learn how to use widgets, the App Drawer, and more.
Image: Apple/Cult of Mac

iOS 14 is finally out and packed full of awesome new features that make being an iPhone user even greater. We’ve got real Home screen widgets, a useful new App Drawer, Picture in Picture, and more!

If you were able to avoid the iOS 14 beta and all these things are still brand-new to you, you might be wondering how some of them work. Well, don’t worry — Cult of Mac has how-to guides on all of them.

Find out how to use some of the best new features in iOS 14 right here.

How to customize Home screen widgets in iOS 14

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How to use widgets in iOS 14
Make the most of widgets in iOS 14.
Image: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

WWDC 2020iOS 14 will ship with a bunch of built-in widgets that put helpful information on your Home screen (with many more coming from third-party developers this fall), and most are customizable in some way.

Here’s how you can edit widgets so that they display the information that’s most relevant to you.

iOS 14’s new Home screen widgets aren’t as powerful as you might think

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Home screen widgets in iOS 14
Widgets are awesome, but they're missing one thing.
Image: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

WWDC 2020 For many iPhone users, the biggest and most exciting change in iOS 14 is the addition of Home screen widgets. It’s a feature we’ve been waiting years to get — and a feature Android has offered since the very beginning. But there’s something you should know before you start using them this fall.

iOS 14 Home screen widgets aren’t quite as powerful as you might think they are.

iPad won’t get some of iOS 14’s best new features

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iPadOS 14 Home screen widgets aren’t nearly as flexible as they are in iOS 14
Home screen widgets in iPadOS 14 can only be placed along the left edge.
Photo: Apple

WWDC 2020 Apple gave the world its first look at iOS 14 and iPadOS 14 at WWDC 2020 on Monday. And while these are still closely linked, one of the signature features added to the iPhone version, the App Library, isn’t making the jump to the iPad version.

And placement of Home screen widgets is very limited for tablet users.

Leaked images reveal iPhone 12’s smaller notch, iOS 14 widgets in action

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iphone-12-pro
Are you excited about this year's iPhone?
Photo: The Hacker 34

New images leaked online seems to confirm rumors that iOS 14 will offer Home screen widgets similar to the ones found on Android. These widgets could potentially provide useful pieces of information to suit each user.

The same image also appears to confirm that the iPhone 12’s notch will hang around for another year. However, although it may get a bit smaller than previous iterations.

The best widgets apps for iPadOS 13’s new Home screen

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Dark Mode on iPadOS
The new Home screen widget panel on iPadOS 13.
Photo: Apple

In iPadOS, the old Today View has shuffled over a little, and now lives right on the Home screen. You can pin widgets there, and they will be permanently shown on the left edge of the Home screen (in landscape, at least — in portrait they will act more like a temporary Slide Over panel).

This changes how we use widgets. Instead of being temporary, quick-info panels, or shortcuts for app functions, widgets are now always visible, and always available to tap. A weather widget can be checked with a single glance, for instance. Ditto countdown timers. And — best of all — Shortcuts can be triggered with a single tap.

Let’s take a look at some great widgets for the iPadOS Home screen.

iOS 13 and iPadOS betas are now available to everyone

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iPadOS gets a new home screen design.
They’re just not ready for everyone.
Photo: Apple

The first public beta of iOS 13 is finally available to public testers.

Apple launched iOS 13 public beta 1 and iPadOS public beta 1 this morning. The software gives everyone the opportunity to try out all the new features, like the system-wide Dark Mode that looks absolutely beautiful. However, you might not want to take the jump quite yet.

How to quickly zoom text on your iPhone and iPad

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zoom text
A magnifying glass is the OG zoom for paper
Photo: theilr/Flickr CC

It’s not just old folks or people with bad eyesight that like big text on their iPhones and iPads. Maybe it’s late and you’re getting sleepy. Or perhaps you have your iPad propped up on the desk during the day and would appreciate larger text because it’s quite a bit farther away than when you hand-hold it. Or maybe you’ll try this tip and realise that zooming text is as useful as zooming photos.

iOS has long allowed you to zoom text, but it was buried deep in the Accessibility section of Settings, making it hard to adjust on the fly. Ever since iOS 11, though, you’ve been able to zoom text as easily as adjusting the screen brightness. Let’s take a look.

How to save Apple Music’s auto-updating playlists forever

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music launcher playlists
Grab Apple Music's ever-changing playlists and keep them forever, like a butterfly pinned to a board and kept in a locked drawer.
Photo: Cult of Mac

One of the neatest features in Apple Music is the For You tab. Specifically, the New Music Mix and My Favorites Mix playlists, which update every week with a whole new set of songs. But what if you dig one of these playlists so much that you want to save it? You can’t. Or at least you can’t unless you use an app like Music Launcher, which has a great kinda-hidden feature that saves Apple’s transient playlists in a permanent form.

iOS 11 concept imagines an all-new lockscreen

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The iPhone's lockscreen could use some changes.
The iPhone's lockscreen could use some changes.
Photo: Matt Birchler

Apple is set to unveil big changes for the iPhone at WWDC 2017 and one feature that could definitely use some improvements is the lockscreen.

In a new concept design that imagines some potential lockscreen upgrades, Matt Birchler shows how a few very simple changes could make the lockscreen feel totally new.

Nearly 80% of all iOS devices now run iOS 10

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iPhone 7
iOS 10 brought a ton of new features to iPhone.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

It’s only been five months since Apple unleashed iOS 10 on the world, but the new mobile operating system is already installed on nearly 4 out of 5 iOS devices.

Apple revealed its latest App Store stats today that show iOS 10’s install base has grown to account for 79% of all mobile Apple devices, making it one of Apple’s fastest adopted releases ever.

iOS 10 review: It’s the little things that matter

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iPhone
Don’t miss out on iOS 13. Ditch your old iPhone now.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Apple’s iOS 10 update for iPhones and iPads is the biggest software refresh the iPhone-maker has launched in years, adding a host of major and minor new features that completely change the iOS experience.

I’ve been using beta versions of iOS 10 on my iPhone 6s and iPad Pro since June. While some of the high-profile additions to Messages, Photos, Apple Music and Apple News aren’t totally mind-blowing, the smaller tweaks make all the difference. With iOS 10, using Apple’s devices is easier, faster and far more enjoyable than ever.

This is the big iOS update you’ve been waiting for, but not for all the reasons Apple thinks.