welcome to product support, a column dedicated to helping you get the most out of the devices and software you already use.
When Apple released iOS 14 in 2020, it gave all compatible iPhones the ability to customize their home screens with widgets for the first time. a widget is just a bigger app that takes up more space and displays more of your information. the idea was that you make your most used apps appear larger on your home screen, so they can be more useful at a glance without having to open them. For example, you can turn the weather app into a widget and see the forecast for the whole week. or turn your calendar app into a widget and see your upcoming agenda.
In 2022, one of the apps that will get a really useful update to its widget is Gmail. Previously, the gmail widget only allowed you to quickly compose an email or show how many unread emails you had, but the recent update actually shows you the last three unread emails in your inbox, so you can see your latest emails without having to. open the gmail app.
how to add a gmail widget to your home screen
- unlock your iphone and open the home screen.
- touch and hold an app, widget, or empty area until the apps start jiggling.
- select the add button (+) in the upper left corner.
- select the gmail widget (or scroll down to select gmail).
- select add widget.
note: if your gmail widget doesn’t show your last three unread emails, don’t worry. it just means you have to update your gmail app. to do this, open the app from the app store > search gmail > and select update. when you go to add the gmail widget you should see the new widget.
there are many new widgets that you can take advantage of besides gmail; in fact, many applications can be turned into widgets. To experiment with widgets, just follow the same steps as above and select a different app (try Photos or Calendar). Most widgets come in three sizes (small, medium, and large) so you can choose how much space each widget takes up (and how much information it displays) on your home screen.
Also, if you don’t want to mess with the classic app lock on your home screen, but still want to take advantage of widgets, you can do it on your iPhone’s Today View screen. This is the screen to the left of your home screen (open your home screen and swipe left), and iOS 14 naturally fills it with widgets. from here you can customize these widgets by long pressing until they start to jiggle. or you can also drag these widgets from today view to your home screen.
If you’re looking for other clever ways to use widgets on your iPhone, here are some handy tips:
how to add a smart stack to your home screen.
There is a special widget you can add to your home screen called a smart stack. it’s different from other widgets because it hosts multiple apps instead of just one, and then you can swipe between the apps within the widget. for example, you can place the smart stack on your home screen, and then swipe between multiple apps like calendar, fitness, and mail, without leaving the smart stack widget. basically, it allows you to do more with a widget, in case you don’t want to clutter your home screen with multiple widgets. Apple claims that the smart stack widget will also be smart enough to know which apps you use at different times of the day and display them at that exact moment.
- unlock your iphone and open the home screen.
- touch and hold an app, widget, or empty area until the apps start jiggling.
- select the add button (+) in the upper left corner.
- scroll down and select smart stack.
- select add widget.
how to remove a photo from the photo widget.
The photo widget is great because you can use it as a digital photo frame that you see every time you open your iphone. the collection of photos that populate the photo widget rotates every day, that way you won’t get tired of a specific photo. That being said, if you want to remove a photo from your photos widget, you can easily do so without removing it from your photos. (Apple has also released an instructional video, here.)
- select the photo widget.
- scroll to the photo you want to remove from the collection.
- select the share button in the bottom left corner.
- select the option that says ‘remove from featured photos’
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