After years of waiting, iPhone widgets finally have buttons, thanks to the new Interactive Widgets feature in iOS 17. You can finally do simple tasks like continue a podcast or mark a task in Reminders without opening the app. Not exactly revolutionary, but incredibly useful for someone whose iPhone is loaded with widgets.
But the usefulness doesn’t end there: many developers have found ways to extend this functionality to bring new features directly to the iPhone’s home screen. Now you can set up a focus session, calculate, convert units, track your calendar and track habits, all without opening the app.
Fantastic
From left to right: Fantastical, Calendar 17 and TickTick widgets
Credit: Khamosh Pathak
Fantastical is already one of the best calendar apps on 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 the appointments for each while switching between days from the top. It is extremely useful and does not require a Premium subscription.
Calculator 17
I used to always have 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 adding up invoices directly from the iPhone home screen.
The Calculator 17 app brings an ad-free and responsive calculator experience to the iPhone home screen. You can edit the colors as well as the theme of the calculator.
TickTick
The Reminders app now has a really nice widget that lets you complete tasks right from the home screen. But if you want more functionality, like calendar integration and cross-platform sync, TickTick is a great choice.
And now, with the iOS 17 update, TickTick also lets you tick off tasks directly from the home screen widget (something Todoist still doesn’t have).
Lock trigger
From left to right: Lock Launcher, Cloud and Streaks widgets.
Credit: Khamosh Pathak
Lock Launcher started out as a way to launch apps from the lock screen widget. But now that home screen widgets are interactive, they find a place on your home screen as well, as a great customizable alternative to adding app icons to your home screen. One Lock Launcher widget can display 20 app icons, without labels.
This solves the problem of choosing between widgets and apps on the home screen. You can now have 12 apps at the bottom of your home screen, with two medium-sized widgets at the top. Everything in the application is customizable, from the size of the application icons to the widget masks.
Overcast
Overcast serves as a great alternative to Apple’s iOS-only Podcasts app. It’s fast, sleek, and full of podcast-enhancing features. Now, with iOS 17, it offers new widgets that allow you to quickly resume your podcast.
What I really like is Overcast’s Large widget, which displays multiple recently played and recently added episodes so you can start playing a new episode from the home screen with just one tap.
Stripes
Streaks ($5.99) is a simple habit tracker that won an Apple Design Award in 2016. It’s very simple: you have more pages and create the habits you want to form. Each habit has an icon, and some can be automatically tracked.
You open the app, press and hold the icon and the habit is tracked. Now, with iOS 17 app widgets, you can track your habit right from your home screen.
Concentration
From left to right: Focus, Zenitizer and Widgetsmith widgets.
Credit: Khamosh Pathak
Focus is a Pomodoro app that will allow you to start, pause and track all your focused work sessions right from the widget. You can also use this widget to quickly add tasks and track them.
Zenitizer
If you practice mindfulness meditation and want to monitor your sitting in silence, the Zenitizer is a must have. The app will allow you to set a timer, with internal chimes and background sound, and will also give you insight into your practice.
The app widget is also pretty cool. You can start one of your preset meditations and track the timer and intervals, even without opening the app.
Widgetsmith
Widgetsmith is a popular widget customization app and has added some cool new interactive widgets for iOS 17. Some free widgets let you flip between music album covers and photos from your library. Then there are a few widgets available only if you subscribe to the Premium plan.
I find the calendar widget very useful. You can switch between days of the week from the top to see all your appointments without opening the Calendar app. And since this is Widgetsmith, you can also customize the color and theme of the widget.