Why are app creators avoiding free marketing?
I have 250 apps on my iPhone. One week after the release of iOS 14, only 3 of my apps have created widgets for the home screen (one of them is even a Testflight version). Why are there so few third party widgets?
The reason for so few third-part widgets might be restrictions from Apples side, like a slow approval process, performance-issues or api-restrictions, but the lack has been noticeable.
We’ve known that widgets were coming to iOS since July. As Sam Dickie wrote three months ago: “Being one of a few widgets available from the release date of iOS14 in September 2020 could provide third party apps with an advantage before it becomes the wild west like the App store”.
There are multiple reasons why this still is a good idea given that many yet haven’t made any widgets:
- You could get increased engagement with existing users since you are right there on their home screen.
- You could get stagnant users interested again. I’m not using all my 250 apps, but I surely would have noticed and tried it out if they had a widget.
- You could get increased daily usage, and maybe more users? Being amongst the first supporting widgets is more or less free marketing! Everyone is making content about the first third-party widgets.
I therefore sat down one evening, designing some potential widgets for a few of my favorite apps.
- Bulder Bank. This is close to my heart as I helped to design the first version. One of the unique things about this bank is that it focuses on what will happen with your economy the 30 next days, not what already has happened. Wouldn’t it be awesome watching how your economy is doing the next 30 days right from your home screen?
- Kron. I invest some of my savings here. It’s a smart and hassle-free way to invest in funds with automatic rebalancing and portfolio based on your risk appetite. It would be practical to see the sum saved and performance on chosen accounts.
- Telenor. At work, we use Telenor as a telephone provider. Working from home or the cabin, I, at times, need to use data-traffic while working, so having a simple view of the usage so far would be a nice feature.
4. Soulver. Daily I reach for Soulver to calculate simple stuff, and I always end up coming back to the same calculations and numbers during the day. Having them available with a swipe would be nice.
5. Overcast. Starting the latest played podcast with one click from the home screen — and see what episode it is would be immensely useful.
6. Homey. I control my smart-home with Homey. Having my favorite flows and devices available on my home screen would be a game-changer.
7. Harvest. Like all consultants, we need to track our time usage on projects. After all, we need to send invoices and become better at estimating new projects. Having a minified timer on the home screen would make everyone more aware of their time-tracking.
8. Finn. Norway’s largest website for classified advertisements. I’m always tracking a few key-words here. It would be nice seeing the latest notification at a glance with an image and price.
9. Bear. I always have a lot of notes, ideas and blogpost ready in Bear. Would be practical having the latest notes available so I could jump right into them or create a new note right from the home screen.
That was just some quick ideas on widgets I would find useful to have. What are your ideas and wishes for widgets? Did you have any favorites?
