An iOS 18 lock screen on an iPhone 14 Plus with a pink wallpaper and the clock. Photo: 茅野ふたば, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
In July 2012 we wrote that Dashboard X 2.0 "makes adding widgets to the home screen a breeze". It did. For jailbroken iPhones, Dashboard X let you drop weather, calendar, notes and system information directly among your app icons. It took Apple eight years to offer something similar.
How Dashboard X worked
The tweak borrowed the idea of the Mac's old Dashboard: small HTML-based widgets that sat on top of the home screen. You could resize and rearrange them, and developers could write their own. Performance depended on the widget, and a badly made one could drain the battery, which was a recurring complaint with widget tweaks of the era.
Apple's version: iOS 14 and after
- iOS 8 (2014): widgets arrived, but only in the Today view, away from the home screen.
- iOS 14 (2020): home screen widgets in three sizes, plus Smart Stacks that rotate automatically.
- iOS 16 (2022): small widgets on the Lock Screen.
- iOS 17 (2023): interactive widgets you can tap without opening the app, and StandBy mode for a phone on its side while charging.
Apple's approach is more restrictive than Dashboard X was. Widgets are built with a system framework, update on a budget set by iOS and cannot run code continuously. The upside is that they barely affect battery life.
Widgets worth adding
Batteries (to see your AirPods and Watch), Screen Time, Weather, Calendar and Reminders are the classics. Sports apps make good use of widgets and Live Activities for scores, and many sportsbook apps now offer a widget or Live Activity that follows a game you have a bet on. If you use one of those, it is worth knowing why gambling apps are geo-restricted, because the widget may keep updating even when the app itself will not let you place a bet where you are.
The jailbreak lesson
Widgets were a perfect example of a jailbreak idea that was right but early. The tweak showed that people wanted glanceable information. Apple waited until it could do it without hurting battery life or security. Both sides had a point.