i0S 5 will include widgets and a notification system!!??

dlopes90

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Hey guys I have this theory. iOS will eventually have widgets, but when?? I came to the conclusion that when iOS 5 is released we will finally see widgets on our iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. But how will they implement this? Will they put widgets on the home screen with all the apps we currently have? NO! If they put widgets and apps mixed around together it will be really unorganized according to "Apple Standards", and by having widgets open all the time it will kill battery life DRAMATICALLY, and we don't wan't that do we? So I was messing around on my MacBook Pro and I hit the dashboard button and what happened? The desktop went into background mode and the widgets came up on the screen, and on the very bottom of the screen are these "app shaped boxes" where we can add more widgets to the screen. Does this screen look familiar to you at all?

To me this resembles the screen when you double click the home button on your iOS device. Right now when you double-click the home button on your iPhone or iPad you have a blank screen and at the very bottom you have your running apps. What I think is when iOS 5 comes out, this blank space on the screen will be filled with available widgets on the multiple different screens with your running apps still at the bottom. By Apple doing this, your widgets will only run when you have the multitasking display up, which means it won't kill battery life as much as to have the widgets constantly open on your main screen at all times.

What i also think is that when you flick to the right you'll have all your widgets lined up, but if you flick to the left (the screen with the ipod controls), you'll not only get your ipod controls at the bottom, but on the blank space above it you will have a notification system. This will show you all your missed events, such as: calls, texts, e-mails, app updates, etc.

Now this is just my theory, but to me this makes the most sense to me on how Apple will implement widgets and maybe a notification system to iOS 5. Let me know what you guys think.
 

anon(27512)

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Am I the only person that doesn't understand the use of widgets on phones or computers? I have a Mac, and I have the widgets dashboard. The only time I've ever used it was when I updated my OS to see what it looked like.

Once I was in dashboard view, the novelty wore off. Yes it has "at-a=glance" information, but it is very limited information. In the week I forced myself to use it, I often found myself going to the widgets website to get the information the widget didn't provide. I would have saved time if I would have just went to the website in the first place.

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Before my iPhone, I had a android phone. The only widget I ever used was the search widget. The rest, like the widgets on my mac, were utterly useless and left much to be desired. I'm sure there are those that love widgets, but on the mac side of things, I don't know anyone that actually uses the dashboard. My .02.
 

Pimp Lucious

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Am I the only person that doesn't understand the use of widgets on phones or computers? I have a Mac, and I have the widgets dashboard. The only time I've ever used it was when I updated my OS to see what it looked like.

Once I was in dashboard view, the novelty wore off. Yes it has "at-a=glance" information, but it is very limited information. In the week I forced myself to use it, I often found myself going to the widgets website to get the information the widget didn't provide. I would have saved time if I would have just went to the website in the first place.

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Before my iPhone, I had a android phone. The only widget I ever used was the search widget. The rest, like the widgets on my mac, were utterly useless and left much to be desired. I'm sure there are those that love widgets, but on the mac side of things, I don't know anyone that actually uses the dashboard. My .02.

The Search widget is the only one thats useless as you have a search button that brings up a search box. Now the calander/task widget, Friendstream(facebook,Twitter) widget, Music widget, news widget are all ones that I use that are extremely convenient. All the information I need right there at a glance, instead of having to open an app to get updates.
 

Mustang5Oh

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Am I the only person that doesn't understand the use of widgets on phones or computers? I have a Mac, and I have the widgets dashboard. The only time I've ever used it was when I updated my OS to see what it looked like.

Once I was in dashboard view, the novelty wore off. Yes it has "at-a=glance" information, but it is very limited information. In the week I forced myself to use it, I often found myself going to the widgets website to get the information the widget didn't provide. I would have saved time if I would have just went to the website in the first place.

-----------

Before my iPhone, I had a android phone. The only widget I ever used was the search widget. The rest, like the widgets on my mac, were utterly useless and left much to be desired. I'm sure there are those that love widgets, but on the mac side of things, I don't know anyone that actually uses the dashboard. My .02.

that is an interesting point. i have used dashboard maybe 3 times in the last year. i do think some widgets would be nice but the implementation of them would be iffy i think.

like said above the notifications couldnt get worse. thats the main thing they need to work on and asap!
 

Jellotime91

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MsEYE

You are absolutely correct, and on a mobile device you're also sacrificing battery life for these useless widgets.

I've seen people on other platforms call the App Store useless. If the App Store is useless, there isn't even a word to describe how useless widgets are.

The notification system DEFINITELY needs a revamp though. It's a pretty big problem.
 
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I would definitely agree that the notification system needs a massive update. The iPhone is such an interactive phone and the notifications are anything but.

On the other hand, I'm on the fence on the topic of widgets. It would definitely depend on how they are implemented into the user interface. I think that implemented correctly I could really enjoy them...implemented incorrectly and the UI could just feel cluttered and messy.
 

iquinn

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I really do not see the advantage to having widgets on an iPhone. They way that apps work it's almost like every app is it's own widget. For little things like iPod controls Apple has already done a good job with limited widgets so I guess I just do not see the appeal of them. As for notifications I would definitely like to see them handeld in a much better way. I'm sure that Apple some tricks up their sleeve for IOS 5 but I'm not going to get my hopes up.
 

anon(27512)

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I'm not saying that some people couldn't get use out of widgets, I'm just speaking for myself and those that I talk to about the subject. For instance, when I had the twitter widget on my android phone, yes I could tweet from the home screen, but that was it. It didn't show me @replies, dm's, or the timeline. To me, if I'm going to use a app, in this case twitter, I would rather just have the full experience. Also, I don't like a lot of crap on my home screen, which is why I'm so glad we have folders. My homescreen looks so clean now.

Like brainT and jello added, I really don't see how this could be implemented well. For example when apple implemented "multitasking" I REALLY had hopes we were going to expose on iOS devices. For those that aren't familiar with expose or macs, I've included a video..

Watch Me

If Apple could do widgets a la dashboard in Mac OS, I would definitely consider using it. For those unfamilar with dashboard on Mac OS, here's a video..

Watch Me


I really hope in a future iOS build we will see Expose Multitasking and Dashboard Widgets. *dreams...*
 
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Mustang5Oh

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I would LOVE to see expose multitasking and quite frankly I'm not sure why we didn't to begin with. Thinking even more about widgets I really agree strongly now that they truely are useless. Like stated all they do is allow you to do usually 1 task. Then you have to load an App to get the rest. Might as well just open the App in the first place. I've never said to myself: "Gee I want to do a search for (insert w/e here) but I wish I didn't have to open safari myself." So forget widgets now.

Expose multitasking and any other style of notifications will work for me!!!
 
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anon(27512)

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I would LOVE to see expose multitasking and quite frankly I'm not sure why we didn't to begin with. Thinking even more about widgets I really agree strongly now that they truely are useless. Like stated all they do is allow you to do usually 1 task. Then you have to load an App to get the rest. Might as well just open the App in the first place. I've never said to myself: "Gee I want to do a search for (insert w/e here) but I wish I didn't have to open safari myself." So forget widgets now.

Expose multitasking and any other style of notifications will work for me!!!

For as flashy as Apple/Jobs like the iPhone, I was really shocked when the multitasking wasn't Expose style. I mean obviously the screen isn't big enough for the full app window, but if they did the apps and they flew on the screen a la expose, how cool would that have been? I mean lets be honest, they make the iPhone to be flashy. Could you imagine being at a bar, showing off your phone and touching a hot corner to invoke mobile expose? Forget showing it off, it would make getting things done on the iphone so much faster.

Also, if they were to do dashboard widgets, it would be a very elegant, very flashy way to do widgets on a phone. They would be out of the way for those that don't want them, it wouldn't be another icon, and it would just work for those who wanted them.

I also strongly agree with the better notifications thing. If we had Palm Pre notifications, it would make me so happy.
 

Mustang5Oh

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At this point I'll take any notification update! I can't believe we are on version 4+ and we still have a lousy outdated notification system! With the new hardware style and the iOS 4+ features the notification system makes me feel like I'm using a BB Storm lol.

Expose multitasking would be sick but I can almost say they will not change it. They seem pretty dang happy with the way it is now and made no changes really for the iPad version. The only reason it got brightness is because of the extra screen size.
 

anon(27512)

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At this point I'll take any notification update! I can't believe we are on version 4+ and we still have a lousy outdated notification system! With the new hardware style and the iOS 4+ features the notification system makes me feel like I'm using a BB Storm lol.

Expose multitasking would be sick but I can almost say they will not change it. They seem pretty dang happy with the way it is now and made no changes really for the iPad version. The only reason it got brightness is because of the extra screen size.

I thought it was pretty lame that they didn't make iOS multitasking on iPad more advanced. I was really hoping that with iOS 4 for iPad, that it would have gotten a little more advanced. I can see why they didn't do it so that the app developers wouldn't have to learn anything new, but at the same time I have this HUGE screen, and STILL can only do one app at a time. Plus I'm sure that carousel effect will look ugly on a big screen. meh.

But getting back to notifications, I honestly hope they steal the window shade from android. That's the only thing I miss from my android phone, and it was awesome. Absolutely one of the best notification systems. I say one of, because I love the way WebOS notifications looks, but I have never used it personally.

Side note: Does anyone think HP will actually make more WebOS phones?
 

Jellotime91

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Ok dudes, about the multitasking, when I first saw iOS 4 multitasking, I was like wow that's lame. There's no visual flare. But when actually using it, it feels so slick, and I love the 'shuffling' transition that it does. To me webOS's flashy app management is kind of useless. Not to mention every app is constantly running just so you can see movement on the 'cards'. It's silly and managing multiple applications on a small screen is just stupid.

People always complain that iOS's multitasking is not flashy enough. Seriously that's not what the OS is about. It's efficient and elegant, not flashy and slow.

Expose multitasking, I don't see how that would be at all attractive or useful. Apps are more recognizable by their icon rather than their screenshot. Say you left a web page open in Twitter and in Facebook and in Safari. You want to get to Safari and you accidentally click Twitter or Facebook because they have their own web pages open in the embedded web browser. That would be annoying as hell and would cause usability issues.

"Dashboard" style widgets are available via jailbreak, and it's stupid. Much like Mac OS dashboard, it's something you'd never actually use. I had it and I ended up just opening the damn calculator, notes, etc. app. Widgets are really pointless on a mobile phone.

For me the ONLY things I'd like to see in iOS right now are as follows:

- New notification system!!! (BTW for those that forgot, the man who developed webOS's notification system was hired by Apple to work on iPhone... So, expect great notifications)

- More double-click widgets (Brightness, 3G, Location), not sure how they'd implement that but I would really appreciate brightness, 3G, and location, so I'd never have to go into settings again.

I wouldn't mind if the tray expanded and went like this when you swipe right (crappy mockup I just did before sleep):
extrasidewidgets.jpg
 
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