With iOS 14, Apple has finally added support for widgets on the iPhone’s home screen allowing users to place them anywhere they want. While Apple had added widgets support on the iPad’s home screen with iPadOS 13 in 2019 itself, it limited them to the Today view on the home screen. In iPadOS 14 , the company has not made any improvements to its widgets implementation meaning users cannot place widgets anywhere on the home screen like they can on the iPhone.
Many presumed that this was a bug in the first beta of iPadOS 14 but Craig Federighi, Apple’s SVP of Software Engineering, has confirmed that Apple does not intend to allow users to move and place widgets anywhere on the home screen like on iOS 14. He confirmed this while speaking to YouTuber Marques Brownlee in his podcast Waveform. Craig says that the current solution felt balanced to Apple which is why it did not tweak it further.
This excuse from Craig Federighi for why the iPad won’t let you put widgets where you want them on the home screen in iPadOS 14 is nonsensical. (via @MKBHD’s podcast and @9to5Mac)
iPad gives you a huge canvas to work with, but limiting them to the sidebar is “balanced”? pic.twitter.com/gyyVpXzcTy
— Chris Welch (@chriswelch) June 26, 2020
Our Take
This explanation from Craig is unlikely to go down well with hardcore iPad users who are finding the inability to move widgets around in iPadOS 14 frustrating. iPads have notably bigger displays and screen real estate than iPhones so it is a bit of an odd decision from Apple to not allow users to place widgets anywhere they like on the home screen. The move would have made the iPadOS home screen that much more useful as well.
Craig’s statement does leave the room open for the company to change its stance on the feature in the future though, so if you want to place widgets anywhere on your iPad’s home screen, definitely let Apple know about it.
