Widgets Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

iOS 5 jailbreak offers third-party Notification Center widgets

by Michael Grothaus (Jun 14th, 2011)

Jailbreakers have already cracked iOS 5's Notification Center widgets, according to 9to5Mac. Notification screen widgets are little apps -- or widgets -- that run in the new Notifications Center in iOS 5. iOS 5 will ship with two widgets, stocks and weather. However, as usual, the jailbreak ...

iOS 5 to feature 'completely revamped' notifications, widgets

by Michael Grothaus (May 27th, 2011)

TechCrunch reports that iOS 5, expected to debut at WWDC next month, will feature a "completely revamped" notification system and widgets. Apple has long been rumored to be revamping its notifications system in iOS, and many have expected that such a notification system revamp would make its way ...

Dashboard: Irrelevant in the age of iOS or gaining new life in Lion?

by Steven Sande (Apr 30th, 2011)

The blogging crew here at TUAW headquarters frequently gets inspiration from emails that we receive from developers and hardware manufacturers. As a perfect example, the inbox the other morning contained some information about an upcoming iOS app that syncs to a Dashboard widget. Fellow blogger ...

Solved: The case of the missing .Mac widgets

by Michael Grothaus (Dec 3rd, 2010)

Back in April of 2005, Apple released the much-awaited Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" OS. One of the big new features of Tiger was Dashboard. The overlay feature supported Widgets, mini-apps that were the descendants of Mac OS 9 Desk Accessories, and that some might consider the precursors to modern iOS ...

Four widgets for learning

by Sang Tang (Apr 7th, 2010)

While the app store ecosystem for the iPhone, and now iPad, are filled with a host of useful apps to help students convert, translate and calculate figures and words, there may be times where an iPhone or iPad app just don't fit into your workflow. Back when Mac OS X Tiger was launched, which ...

iPad app previews aplenty all across the Web

by Mike Schramm (Apr 1st, 2010)

We're seeing tons and tons of news about iPad apps dropping now, and we're still a few days away from launch. In addition to our own coverage, here's a bunch of the other previews we've seen popping up around the community: This iVerse Comics app looks excellent, and it's one of the first ...

First Look: It's About Time brings widgets to the iPad with mini apps

by Steven Sande (Mar 31st, 2010)

Several years ago at Macworld Expo, I had the pleasure of meeting Saied Ghaffari, CEO of a small company called It's About Time Products, LLC. The company had created a training app which ran on the Mac and provided new iPhone users a chance to learn more about their devices, iTunes, and ...

Patent suggests location-based social networking for iPhone

by Chris Rawson (Feb 7th, 2010)

Imagine you and a friend are on a phone call, and both of you own iPhones. You're trying to meet up somewhere downtown in a city neither of you know very well, so the best answer you can give your friend when he asks, "Where are you now?" is "Uhhh..." followed by several seconds of silence. It's ...

Five widgets for Friday

by Sang Tang (Jan 22nd, 2010)

As we've previously pointed out, in many ways, Dashboard Widgets are the precursor to iPhone apps. Need to know when your latest packages will arrive? Yes, there's an app for that. But there's a widget too. Need to figure out how many pesos are in a dollar, or what a Quarter Pounder with Cheese ...

Give your Dashboard a kick in the pants

by Michael Grothaus (Dec 14th, 2009)

After reading through the comments on my post about Dashboard Widgets, I noticed quite a few people lamented the fact that the widgets have to go through a 'start-up' process every time you turn on your Mac or log out and log back in. Well, not anymore. We actually covered this four years ago, ...

Widgets: "iPhone apps, I am your father."

by Michael Grothaus (Dec 11th, 2009)

Don't get me wrong, I love the iPhone and its App Store juggernaut, it's just sometimes it seems that people have forgotten all about the iPhone app's father: the Dashboard widget. First introduced in Mac OS X Tiger in 2005, widgets changed the way people quickly accessed simple information on ...

Fixing the Image Upload widget

by Aron Trimble (Dec 29th, 2008)

The Image Upload widget featured here is a freeware widget by Model Concept which allows you to upload an image to ImageShack simply by dropping it onto the widget. The result is that the URL is auto-magically saved to your clipboard. The overall experience is pretty slick; it supports audio and ...

Friday Favorite: ColorBurn

by Megan Lavey-Heaton (Dec 19th, 2008)

This is a gem for anyone who does design, both for the web and print. ColorBurn is a Dashboard widget from Firewheel Design that generates a new color palette each day for designers to try out. The suggested colors also have the hexadecimal values for web design. There is an option to change the ...

Widget Watch: Get Organized for free

by Steven Sande (Jul 2nd, 2008)

Those wizards of widgets at iSlayer have come up with yet another really useful tool for the Dashboard. Organized is a free widget with an event calendar, world clock, notes, and to-dos, all of which are synced to iCal and Mail. As with other iSlayer widgets like iStat menus/nano/pro, it is obvious ...

Mac 101: faster widget management

by Brett Terpstra (Mar 10th, 2008)

If you make any kind of extensive use of the OS X Dashboard, you probably close as many widgets as you open. Usually, that means hitting the plus sign at the lower left of the screen to reveal the widget bar, clicking the "X" on the widget you want to remove, and then closing the widget bar. Seems ...