An Apple patented granted yesterday for the company’s original iPhone contains within one of its illustrations a small piece of information that could confirm the company is willing to open up Notification Center widgets in iOS 5 to third-party developers.
The patent generated a lot of buzz when it went public yesterday, due to its broad scope that could mean every other touchscreen smartphone on the planet now infringes one of Apple’s patents. However, there’s an interested piece of information that many of us overlooked.
Within ‘Figure 1A’ of Apple’s new patent, there is an illustration that mentions “User-Created Widget(s)” and a “Widget Creator Module” — two positive indications that Apple will enable the APIs that allow third-party developers to create their own widgets for use in the iOS 5 Notification Center.
By giving third-party developers the go-ahead to create their own application add-ons, we can expect to see widgets for our favorite third-party applications, such as quick access to social network feeds and to-do lists, and controls and information for our music apps.
Developers have already been hard at work creating their own widgets that can already be integrated into Notification Center on jailbroken devices. Just this morning we brought you the WeeTranslate Google Translate widget, and there are plenty of others available in Cydia.
[via RazorianFly]
Killian Bell is a freelance writer based in the U.K. He has an interest in all things tech and also covers Android over at CultofAndroid.com. You can follow him on Twitter via @killianbell.
12 responses to “Original iPhone Patent Confirms Apple’s Always Had User Widgets In Mind”
That rules! iStat, this is your opportunity to shine!!!
The one thing I’d like to “borrow” from Android is the ability to reject a call with text message option.
-Chris
http://friendsofmaconfb.wordpr…
Chris – that feature’s existed way before Android
Shouldn’t it read “An Apple **patent** granted yesterday…”?
I think it’s hard to reach conclusions now about what was written then, since the whole notion of ecosystems and software on cellphones was different then. Just a few months before the patent was filed, Apple said that all 3rd party apps on iPhones would be browser-based! http://goo.gl/fSaBk
So did notification, lists of data and even notification lists, yet that’s commonly credited to Android :p
Until a feature shows up, its vaporware. Windows Phone 7 has notification panes now (but not user created). Thinking about something and implementing it are two way different things.