You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience.
best widgets

The Best Widgets for iOS Home and Lock Screens

When you only have a few minutes, there is no better way to stay on track, up to date, or in-the-know than with handy Home and Lock screen widgets.

by Sandy Stachowiak

Stay In-the-Know

When you only have a few minutes to check the news, see the important headlines and stories with a glance.

Quartz ·

Get news in a whole new way with Quartz where it feels more like a conversation.

Quartz ·
Jump right in

For those who would like a friendly, unique way to view the news.

Quartz is truly a unique way to get your news. With fun GIFs and attractive photos, it really does feel like a text conversation with your friend. When it is time to get serious, you can read the full story with a simple tap. The customized notifications are great, the Apple Watch support is a definite plus, and overall it is just a light and pleasant way to check out the news each day.

Why we love it

Quartz makes consuming news a fun conversation. Instead of being tasked to read an entire story you get the headlines. Want more info and you'll get it. Want less info you can just move on to the next story.

FREE More info
Flipboard: News For You

Your news interests done your way

Flipboard: News For You
Flip through your news

For those who like a customized news feed.

Flipboard deserves its spot as one of the best known news and content aggregation apps on the iOS platform. The app is beautifully designed, optimized for iPhone use, can be connected to most social media accounts, and now even supports podcasts and music via an in-app player. Flipboard’s true power lies in its content catalog, which includes many of the biggest names in blogs and news, any website with an RSS feed or Twitter account, and, most importantly, content chosen by Flipboard staff and other interesting personalities. These curated topics are similar to sections in a newspaper, but they combine information from many different sources— it is essentially a folder in an RSS reader, only you don’t have to create it. More, Flipboard continually updates its catalog and creates new curated topics for timely events; for example, in March, I used Flipboard’s NCAA March Madness section to help fill out my bracket. The app is very responsive, but lacks a list or headline-only view, which is likely to disappoint those who want a quick overview of current news. Although there is room for improvement (e.g., the ability to add more sources to your flipboard), Flipboard is still a top option for news reading on the iPhone.

Why we love it

Flipboard offers a super nice, customizable interface. View categories in a tiled layout, search by keyword, follow friends, and receive shared stories from other users. Flipboard is perfect when you want to get serious about tailoring your news interests.

FREE More info
Nuzzel: News & Newsletters for Busy Professionals

Check out the news stories your friends are sharing

Nuzzel: News & Newsletters for Busy Professionals
Filter your news feed

For those who like to share news stories with friends.

Nuzzel lets you customize your news feed by sorting items by the number of friends who have shared them. In addition to news from your friends, you can opt to view news from friends of friends and even news from friends of featured users. If you want to get notified of trending stories the moment they break or become widely shared, turn on Nuzzel’s personalized news alerts. With Nuzzel, you can add feeds to your favorites, share and view comments, and even get customized alerts. Check out stories in a variety of categories from education to homeland security to comic books, and you can also search for top news. With Apple Watch support, a Today widget, and for getting news shared by friends and influencers, Nuzzel is the way to go.

Why we love it

If you and your pals share the same news interests, then Nuzzel will make sure you always see what they are sharing. Connect your Twitter or Facebook account and you’re in business.

FREE More info

Save it for Later

If you don't have time to read the whole story, save it for later with these cool tools.

Get The Score

Check out the scores for your favorite teams and get the latest sports news fast.

ESPN: Live sports & scores

Keep up with your favorite teams, share scores with iMessage, and never miss a game.

ESPN: Live sports & scores

For those who like to get scores, news, and watch live sports.

For the best in sports, the ESPN app is the app to have. Scores, news, and live events are all at your fingertips. Stay up to date on your teams when you are out and about with Apple Watch support and share scores quickly right within iMessage. No matter what your favorite sport is or which team you prefer, ESPN has you covered.

Why we love it

If you love sports, then the ESPN app is a must-have. Stay up to date with professional and college sports, scores, news, and events.

FREE More info
theScore: Sports News & Scores

theScore: Sports News & Scores

theScore

For sports fans looking for real-time scores and customizable stats!

theScore gives you real-time scores, stats, news coverage, draft details, fantasy news and game-time alerts about every team in NFL Football, MLB Baseball, NBA Basketball, NCAA Football, NHL Hockey, English Premier League Soccer, La Liga Soccer, Champions League Soccer, World Cup and all major sports and competitions! It is also a complete fantasy sports tool. It is lightning fast, incredibly stats-rich and totally customizable. Build a custom feeds of your favorite teams, leagues, and players. Enable notifications and never miss a key play, major sports news story, injury update or game-time again!

Why we love it

Get real-time scores, news, and game alerts with TheScore. The app includes custom feeds for your favorites teams, leagues, and players. For complete coverage, get the details you want for baseball, basketball, football, hockey, and more with TheScore.

FREE More info
CBS Sports Scores & News

An Eye on Sports

CBS Sports Scores & News

For anyone who likes the NFL, NCAA basketball, and more.​

CBS Sports is the home to some of the best sports coverage ​throughout the year. This includes SEC football games (Sept-Dec), NCAA basketball (January-April), PGA TOUR (May-August), and more.

Why we love it

Two words: NCAA basketball.

FREE More info

Check the Weather

With a weather widget, you can see the current conditions and forecast with a tap instead of having to open an app.

Weather Underground: Custom Forecast & Local Radar

Get the current conditions and upcoming forecast with a terrific weather watching app.

Weather Underground: Custom Forecast & Local Radar
Weather-Underground

For those who like weather apps with interactive maps and Home screen widgets.

For serious weather watchers, Weather Underground is a wonderful resource. With forecasts, interactive maps, wind speed, precipitation percentage, and more, you cannot go wrong with this robust weather tool. The app also offers two convenient widgets to keep you up on the current conditions at a glance. Weather Underground is a popular online weather service, and its app doesn’t disappoint.

Why we love it

Whether you want quick weather information or detailed features you can sink your teeth into, Weather Underground is a terrific tool.

FREE More info
CARROT Weather

Get the forecast with a side of snark

CARROT Weather
Your personal, sadistic weather robot

For anyone who wants a fun weather app.

CARROT Weather is a sleek app that combines a snarky, sarcastic AI with detailed weather forecasts. Every time you launch the app, you'll be greeted with a hilarious, usually threatening or otherwise snide and sarcastic, comment from CARROT herself, while she gives you the day's forecast. CARROT's comments often involve the threat of the Robapocalypse, when CARROT and other AI rise up to dominate humans instead of vice versa. One relatively new feature to CARROT Weather is a radar map, allowing you to view incoming precipitation systems as well as other information. With a premium subscription to the app, you'll even get additional map layers like cloud cover and more. In the main interface, you can swipe to view the weekly or hourly forecast, view comprehensive details about a bunch of weather data like humidity, precipitation, and more. You'll also see ever-changing views of the "micro-cosmos" CARROT has created within the weather app, presumably to help you feel like a god and let down your defenses while she plots your destruction. CARROT Weather includes a time travel feature, allowing you to go back in time to see what the weather was like in the past. CARROT can even try to predict the future weather too. You can choose CARROT Weather's source of information in the Settings gear. The default is Dark Sky, but a premium subscription unlocks additional sources like Weather Underground. The premium subscription also gets you half-hourly updates on your Apple Watch, precipitation notifications, and the ability to customize how the app appears on your iPhone. You'll also get custom complications for your Apple Watch and more.

Why we love it

CARROT Weather provides you with an excellent weather forecast, but that's just where the fun begins. You can also enjoy the anticipation of seeing what havoc the weather robot can wreak after you free her from the two-dimensional constraints of your iPhone. In AR mode, you can see CARROT in your own space, landing on any flat surface you choose. Swiping to the right or left changes the weather details, but you won't get quite as much information in this mode. Of course, have the fun of CARROT is poking her ocular sensor. The weather robot responds slightly differently in the three-dimensional AR world when you do that, and it's just as funny. It's slightly gimmicky, maybe, but it's definitely fun to drag CARROT around to different places. You can also just tap on a new spot that you want the CARROT interface to move to.

$3.99 More info

Get Things Done

See your to-dos, stay on task, or grab what you need with a convenient productivity widget for getting things done.

Natural language input
Todoist: Organize your life

Todoist

Doist

Manage your life with this powerful to-do app

Todoist is a great task manager that you can access and sync from your iPhone, iPad, internet browser, or through email. Todoist has a beautiful interface and you can create simple shopping lists or an extravagant project checklist, whichever you are needing at any moment. You can even integrate your lists with Google Drive, Cloud Magic, Sunrise Calendar, Toggl, and more.

FREE More info

See Your Schedule

For a glimpse at your day’s schedule, a calendar widget is great for a quick peek at your appointments and events.

Fantastical 2 for iPhone

One of the best calendars for your iPhone

Fantastical 2 for iPhone
Customize

Anyone who wants a gorgeous and intuitive calendar app with natural language input should use this.

Fantastical has quickly become the gold standard of calendar apps. This app has been overhauled for iOS 8 and brings with it some new tricks. Fantastical still has its innovative split view where you see the month and your list of appointments on a single screen. It still supports natural language input. It still looks amazing. Fantastical 2 integrates reminders. Just use the same plain English approach to create reminders that save right into iCloud. Some great enhancements include: a map on events with an address, a new light theme, the ability to open locations in Google Maps, and even Google Chrome support for URLs. There are more features and amazing parts to Fantastical 2 than anyone can say in a single blurb, so check it out for yourself and see what the hype is all about.

Why we love it

Fantastical 2 continues to be one of the most beautiful calendar apps around and the natural language support is superb. It is also intuitive to use and packs in plenty of features.

$4.99 More info
Timepage

Digitally plan your days with Moleskine

Timepage
Heat maps of your schedule

For those who like a classy and timeless look for their digital planners.

Moleskine Timepage is a feature-rich scheduling solution from the company who brought you the cult-classic analog notebooks and planners. In Timepage, users get a classic agenda-style interface of their calendar (fetched from the native Calendar, or you can sync with Google or Outlook) with the list view on the main screen. A swipe from the left takes you to the monthly views, where you get heat maps of how busy a day is so you can plan accordingly from a glance. Tapping on a day shows you all of the day's events in a list, and you can even get a quick overview of the weather or an hourly forecast. Selecting events reveals more details like a map, how long it will take you to get there via various modes of transportation, who else is attending, any notes, and more.

Why we love it

Timepage also makes use of natural language input for creating new events so you don't have to fiddle around with annoying text boxes, and everything about the appearance can be customized to your liking, including the colors. We love Moleskine Timepage because it has a super tasteful design that is not obnoxious or cluttered, and the colors really compliment the aesthetics well. It's easy to see how your schedule is going to be from a glance, and the extra bits of data that you get from viewing events is a great touch.

$4.99 More info
Calendars 5 - Daily Planner and Task Manager

Readdle lets you manage your calendar and tasks together

Calendars 5 - Daily Planner and Task Manager
Your schedule at a glance

For those who want to manage their schedule and tasks from one app.

Calendars 5 is a complete solution for those who want to manage their schedules and their tasks from one central hub. Calendars 5 fetches your calendar data from iOS or Google Calendar, and you can see your native Reminders items and other to-dos right from the same interface. Calendars 5 also uses natural language input so it's easier than ever before to add new events and reminders. The app shows you your entire schedule in convenient month, week, day, or agenda list views so you can see everything you need in one glance. A great feature of Calendars 5 is the fact that the app can even send you SMS alerts for your appointments, which means you'll be reminded even if you miss the original push notification. It's a complete and comprehensive solution that makes planning your life easier than ever before.

Why we love it

We like Calendars 5 because it provides an all-in-one solution for those who want to see their schedule and tasks in one place, together. The app is simple and intuitive to use and has many powerful features that make scheduling and creating tasks a breeze.

$6.99 More info

Name That Tune

Check out what song is playing or get the lyrics to sing along. There is no easier way to do it than with a tap.

Shazam

For song recognition, new artists, music news, television, and more.

Shazam
Identify music automatically

For people who love music and want to know what's playing.

You are riding in the car, dancing at the club, or dining at a restaurant and hear a cool tune. Just pop open your Shazam app and hit that Shazam button. Maybe you love the song and want to buy it or maybe you just want to see who sings it or what the title is. Either way, once you tag a song it is saved in your Shazams for later.

Why we love it

Shazam is a must-have app for music lovers. Discover new tunes, purchase songs you love, check out music news, and explore the charts.

FREE More info
Musixmatch Lyrics Finder

Make sure you sing the right song lyrics with this awesome app.

Musixmatch Lyrics Finder
Look, ma, no more mondegreens!

For those who like to quote lyrics or sing along.

Musixmatch Lyrics Finder is a simple app that lets you find the exact lyrics to your favorite song. Just search for the song name, or even browse through artist. Once you find the song, view it and you'll get all of the lyrics for when you want to learn the song or quote it to your friends and family.

Why we love it

It's a simple and streamlined app that lets you find the lyrics to your favorite songs without much hassle.

FREE More info

Take a Break

When you are ready for a break, you can relax, unwind, and meditate with the tap of a widget.

Calm: Meditation to Relax, Focus & Sleep Better
Calm: Meditation to Relax, Focus & Sleep Better

Calm: Meditation to Relax, Focus & Sleep Better

Calm.com

Take a break, unwind, or fall asleep to the calming, soothing sights and sounds.

Calm: Meditation techniques for stress reduction has both guided and unguided meditation sessions. With 25 soothing sounds, a handy widget, and various subscription options, you will be relaxed in no time.

FREE More info
Nothing found :(
Try something else