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IOS Apple

Apple Announces iOS 14 With Widgets on the Home Screen (inputmag.com) 41

Posted by msmash from the moving-forward dept.
Apple's WWDC keynote was virtual this year, but that didn't stop it from announcing the next version of its mobile software, iOS 14. From a report: Fourteen versions since its debut changed the world, Apple is refocusing its improvement efforts on strengthening iOS's tent poles. That means more little changes and improvements across iOS and less of an aesthetic change. For users frustrated by the bugginess of iOS 13 and its many subsequent updates, the under-the-hood prioritization is appreciated. Any iOS users will tell you that the implementation of widgets has been underwhelming. They were bolted onto the Notification Center at first and then later given its own space to the left of the main home screen. In iOS 14, widgets are now prominently accessible on the home screen. Widgets on the home screen come in different sizes. For example, the weather widget takes up approximately apps. iOS 14 has a new Translation app, which is basically Apple's version of Google Translate. The pre-installed iOS 14 apps supports English, Mandarin Chinese, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Portuguese, and Russian.
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Apple Announces iOS 14 With Widgets on the Home Screen More

Apple Announces iOS 14 With Widgets on the Home Screen

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  • How original (Score:5, Funny)

    by ArhcAngel ( 247594 ) on Monday June 22, 2020 @01:37PM (#60213314)
    Where do they get these crazy ideas?
    • Haha. Must be a time machine! All they had to do was travel back to 2008 to discover widgets in the original release of Android. That's ignoring all the pre-Android history of widgets, of course, but let's keep it simple.

    • Don't you get it yet ?

      Apple never implements anything first.

      But they always implement them Right (tm). :)

      • I wouldn't give them an "always", but they do do better than most.

        If nothing else, their product and feature release are usually better thought through than most and they seem to worry less over missing an internal ship date goal than anyone I've ever worked for in IT. I've long thought that part of their secrecy was to avoid painting themselves into a corner where they have to ship a product that isn't finished.
      • The snooze on alarm being set to 9 minutes convinces me you are wrong. :-)

    • It is funny as I decided to drop iOS to Android this weekend. One of the features that I am finding that I liked is the widgets that I can place on my homescreens for quick and easy reference.

      • I'm in awe at how much pull you have with them. Seriously I once managed to convince a company to honour a warranty which was 2 days out, but you... for you they are redesigning an OS! :-)

  • Translation app comparison (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anubis IV ( 1279820 ) on Monday June 22, 2020 @01:58PM (#60213396)

    iOS 14 has a new Translation app, which is basically Apple's version of Google Translate.

    Except that it does all of the translation on-device without ever contacting Apple's servers.

    • Therefore expect it to be as reliable as siri or apple maps.

      • Re:Translation app comparison (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Anubis IV ( 1279820 ) on Monday June 22, 2020 @02:29PM (#60213508)

        While Apple Maps was terrible at the start, it's gotten a LOT better...which, if you're old enough to remember, is roughly how Google Maps started back in 2005. While its AJAX was breakthrough when it launched, its directions took a few years to catch up to the quality of the directions provided by competing services.

        By the time Apple Maps launched, Google Maps had been solid for long enough that people had forgotten how it started and weren't willing to give Apple Maps the time it needed to do the same. In the last year or two though, it's gotten good enough that I was finally able to stop using Google Maps. So far as I'm seeing, they're on par with each other in daily usage, with Apple Maps having the better on-device interface.

        Siri is still super hit-or-miss though, and I wouldn't be surprised if their translation app performs similarly, like you suggest.

        • Which one do you think has better traffic info and road closure updates?

          Real time traffic issue is maybe a wash, but I'm kind of convinced Google has better exterior data applied to road closures.

          I've mostly stuck with Google maps, but I'm still amazed it doesn't understand a local HOV lane which is physically distinct enough to be mappable via GPS.

          • I don’t encounter either on a day-to-day basis, so it’s a bit tough for me to say, admittedly. The last few times we went through Houston, I’ve had Apple Maps up while my wife has had Google up, and while they have been different, they seem like they each get it right and wrong about as much as the other.

            • I'm inclined to think that the traffic data is probably a toss-up.

              Google has slightly more market share, combined with iOS users running Google maps means they have probably more telemetry data and better quality analytics.

              That being said, their market share gap is marginal and Apple probably gains telemetry from their phones regardless of map application usage. And there may be some argument that iOS users are more likely to be affluent commuters, thus providing Apple with more relevant telemetry vs. lowe

        • While Apple Maps was terrible at the start, it's gotten a LOT better

          You're talking about an app whose icon at launch literally visualised the instruction "In 200m turn left off the bridge, go over the barrier and crash onto the I-280 below" Made all the funnier by people standing in front of the icon proudly talking about it at the keynote in 2012: https://images.macrumors.com/t... [macrumors.com]

          It has gotten better, it couldn't possibly have gotten any worse.

    • Re:Translation app comparison (Score:5, Informative)

      by LynnwoodRooster ( 966895 ) on Monday June 22, 2020 @02:17PM (#60213470) Journal
      I can do the same with Google Translate by downloading language packs for offline use [google.com]. The downside is I have to download the language pack first. The upside is I can choose from 109 languages [wikipedia.org] and only fill my phone with those I care about.

      • Thanks for pointing that out. It’s something I wasn’t aware of, though there’s a big difference between an optional offline mode and what Apple is doing. One doesn’t collect any data by design and by default, whereas the other defaults to collecting data while providing a way to opt-out of data collection.

        • Yes, one defaults to filling your phone with dictionaries you don't need, the other lets you select what dictionaries you want. Big difference! And one does it for many, many more languages, and includes picture-to-text translations even offline. And works on all platforms (iOS included).

          But at least Apple is finally showing up to the party, albeit 6 years late...

    • Oh, and in addition to offline support, Google Translate (which is also available for iOS) allows for photo translate [google.com]; take a picture of a sign in a different language, and it'll do its best to translate for you. It fails with some highly stylized fonts (common in Chinese, for example) but with most "official"/Government signage or other sources, it's quite good.

      This is also a good way to learn a foreign language, as you learn what the natives call something, which is often different from a literal transla

      • Forget photo translate. Google Translate offers real time video translation. You can literally point the camera at text running across the screen and get a translation into a foreign language.

        The only downside to this mode is that in this mode it translates word for word and not in a sentence with context. That contextual translation still requires you to take a picture and highlight an area of interest.

    • Google Translate doesn't contact Apple's servers either.

      In all seriousness though, contacting Google's Servers is optional too.

      • So someone else mentioned, though there’s still a big difference between opt-out with Google and “not even an option” with Apple. Most users keep defaults, after all.

  • My beautiful young bride is still an Android user after my two sons and I all have switched to Ios. She, however, never liked widgets. I have come to forget them for the most part. I was a huge widget fan with my Galaxy Note 2 and then Windows Phones.

  • Fourteen versions since its debut changed the world

    Did they start with version 0.0?

    • We don't talk about version 0.0 and the tragedy that befell those early adopters.

      • We don't talk about version 0.0 and the tragedy that befell those early adopters.

        Hint: if you're running that OS and need to say its name, just be sure not to add the words "destruct zero" immediately afterward.

  • I was going to post that I don't use widgets much on my Android phone, but then I realized I do use them all the time, but I've just forgotten that that's what I'm doing. My point is that there are really two classes of widgets.

    1: Widgets that put app functionality on the home screen, like weather, clocks, stock reports, or media controls. I love my widget that displays time with seconds that I use when setting the clocks in the house, but for most of this class of widgets, I wouldn't miss them if they we

  • For example, the weather widget takes up approximately apps.

    WTF does this even mean, it takes up approximately apps?

  • widget (Score:2)

    by nnet ( 20306 )
    iOS 14.

  • Better late than never, I guess.

    It'll be interesting to see if Apple claims that widgets on the home screen was their idea.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by JackAxe ( 689361 )
      Pretty much what I was thinking. :)

  • iOS 14 will apparently support iPhones all the way back to the 6S and the original SE.

    watchOS 7, on the other hand, will require an Apple Watch Series 3 or newer.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
      was tere any majr hardware change (as in chipset etc not the case) that might make sw compatibility un necessarily complex? I don't follow apple watch that much, are there stil very many series 2 apple watches around in daily use?

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