Widgets on iOS are nothing new. They were first introduced with iOS 8, but it was iOS 14 that fully utilized them. Not only can you customize the Today screen, but you can also add widgets to your Home screen. And the right widgets can actually be handy and can help increase your productivity. Keep reading to discover the top 10 must-have iPhone widgets for photographers and video creators.
Widgets act as extensions of apps you already have installed on your phone. And there are actually two types of widgets: widgets for your Today View and widgets for your Home screen. This list will include both types.
Launch Center is designed to help you quickly launch any of your apps. But the best part of it is that it lets you fully customize each widget, so you get to decide which apps you want to have available with one tap on your Home screen.
Launch Center on the App Store
Lightroom offers a series of widgets, including editing tools, discovery, and in-app tutorials. But perhaps the most useful option is the Take Selfie widget. This one automatically opens the Lightroom camera to the front-facing camera.
The Shortcuts app makes it easy to complete complicated tasks with only a couple of taps. And widgets let you add them directly to your Home screen. One of those is the Make GIF shortcut, which converts your Live Photos into a GIF.
Camera M is a powerful app for any savvy iPhone photographer. The Golden Hour widget will display the time of sunrise and sunset. And, just as the name suggests, it will show you when the golden hour is each day.
Unfortunately, VSCO only offers a Today View widget, but it’s still quite useful. It allows you to quickly import the last photo you took into VSCO and start editing it.
The For You widget in the Photos app will randomly display pictures from the For You album. It’s a nice feature that lets you revisit some of the images you might have forgotten about.
Don’t use the default Photos app from Apple? No problem. Google Photos offers an equivalent widget that curates some of your best memories.
Google Photos on the App Store
If you want to have more control over the pictures that are displayed in your widgets, you’ll want to check Photo Widget Collage, which lets you create collages and slideshows.
Widgetsmith is another app that lets you create fully customizable widgets. You can select a specific photo album to be displayed or add the date and other text on top of your photos, giving your pictures a little more function on your Home screen.
If you’ve ever rearranged the apps on your Home screen — or even just deleted an app — then adding and editing widgets will feel quite familiar to you. Below are some instructions for fully customizing your widgets.
Adding a widget to your iPhone is simple once you have the app downloaded from the App Store. Just follow these steps:
Some widgets will actually allow you to customize what’s appearing in the widget. If a widget is editable, this is how you do it:
Maybe a widget is proving to not be as useful as you had hoped. Here’s how to get rid of it:
The most common reason you can’t add widgets to the Home screen is that it requires iOS 14, iOS 15, or a newer iOS version. Make sure your iPhone is up to date by going to the Settings app and tapping General > Software Update.
Typically, if iOS widgets are not staying on your Home screen, it means there’s a bug in the handoff between the app and iOS. Here are a few troubleshooting steps you can try:
Widgets can be incredibly powerful tools to help speed up your productivity. And that’s especially true for photographers and video creators. Hopefully, a couple of the apps on this list will be useful to your iPhone photography.