Apple announced iOS 17 back in June at the Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) with many small enhancements such as machine learning-powered autocorrect, an easy way to create stickers, and a StandBy mode that turns the iPhone into a nightstand. However, the feature that will be most useful to consumers may be iOS 17’s interactive Home Screen widgets — mainly, thanks to a vast ecosystem of developers who are readying their apps to support the new format. In addition to first-party widgets for Apple’s own apps, like Apple Music, Home and Reminders, a number of third-party developers have also adopted the new format with iOS 17-optimized versions of their own apps. Below are a selection of apps with interactive widgets you can try now. Music Widgets Albums Music player Albums, which focuses on a full album listening experience based on the songs that are in your Apple Music library, has different interactive widgets to control the music or shuffle through different albums. One widget gives you controls to skip to the next album in a collection or even skip tracks. While the other presents random albums as tiles to quickly start listening to one. Doppler Music app Doppler, which caters to people who buy their music, created a colorful variety of widgets that let you play your music from your Home Screen. These Now Playing widgets let you play and pause your music from your Home Screen. When using the “medium” widget size, you can also skip to the previous/next song. The app also includes StandBy widgets and adjustable text sizes. Image Credits: Doppler Dark Noise Background noise app Dark Noise’s interactive widgets range from a single button for your favorite sound to having multiple sound buttons on one widget so you can switch between them. Image Credits: Dark Noise Health Widgets Glucomate The interactive widgets in Glucomate will allow for quick entry of glucose data into HealthKit, which then appears in the main Glucomate app and other apps that access the same HealthKit data. Liftin’ Liftin’, a workout tracker will have both interactive widgets for tracking workouts in addition to a new Live Activity, StandBy integration, widgets for the Smart Stack on Apple Watch, design updates for watchOS 10 and support for App Shortcuts in Spotlight, Siri and the Shortcuts app. Image Credits: Liftin’ Gentler Streak Gentler Streak, the health and fitness tracker app, has launched an interactive widget in version 4.9 for you to start your workout from your Home Screen. Zenitizer Zenitizer, a meditation timer app, is launching multiple interactive widgets for iOS 17 that allow you to start and stop different meditation routines with one tap. SmartGym SmartGym, the app that lets you create personalized workout routines and stay on top of your fitness goals, is launching new interactive widgets where you tap on arrow buttons to quickly view your weekly workout history, average heart rate and how many calories you’ve burned. SmartGym is also bringing its “Quote of the Day” and “Up Next” features to StandBy. Additionally, Live Activities and Dynamic Island are interactive. Image Credits: SmartGym Rise Sleep Rise Sleep, an app that helps you track and improve your sleep and energy, is adding interactivity to its already popular Home Screen widgets where you can see your data at a glance. With iOS 17, you can now manage your Alarm and Sleep Sounds, all from your existing Widgets. Image Credits: Rise Sleep Food Widgets FoodNoms FoodNoms, a nutrition tracker that lets you scan barcodes and nutrition labels and keep track of advanced info, like macros, is offering two new interactive widgets in iOS 17 that let you log your favorite foods, water, coffee, recipes, and saved meals without even opening the app. The Log Food widget will let you log directly from the widget using the app’s Smart Suggestions algorithm, while the Favorites widget will make it easier to log favorite foods. MealPrepPro The developer behind the meal prep app MealPrepPro is adding new interactive widgets that will let you log your meals from your Home Screen. Ambre Ambre’s recipe organizer app will offer interactive widgets that walk you through your recipe steps. The widgets will support all sizes, including extra large, which also has an interactive ingredients list. Image Credits: Ambre WaterMinder WaterMinder by Funn Media has prepared a widget that easily lets you add different quality of water intake (such as 180ml, 250ml, or 420ml). Users can also see the progress of their daily water intake change through that widget. Image Credits: WaterMinder Calory Similar to WaterMinder, Funn Media’s app Calory has also released an interactive widget to quickly add food intake such as a banana or an apple. No Meat Today An app designed to help you keep track of your meat-free days, No Meat Today, added interactive widgets that let you engage with the app’s tracking capabilities without having to actually launch the app. Image Credits: No Meat Today Tracking Widgets Tally The counting, scorekeeping and habit-tracking app Tally is building a new set of tappable interactive widgets that let you track anything from game scores to how many cups of coffee you’ve had today. Chronicling The Chronicling widgets offer speedy event logging and quick visualizations of your data. Image Credits: Chronicling Timelines The time-tracking app Timelines will allow you to quickly stop and start timers by tapping its widgets on your Home Screen. Image Credits: Timelines Financial Widgets Bills to Budget launching in August offers a new set of interactive widgets that let you keep track of your finances and budgets while on the go. Image Credits: Bills to Budget MoneyCoach, an app for financial planning and expense tracking, has an interactive widget that helps you log your expenses from the home screen. It has a full numerical pad to enter the amount for an expense. You can also quickly select a category and account where the expense will be logged. CardPointers CardPointers, an app that helps you save money and earn more cashback and points on your credit cards, is introducing four new interactive widgets on iPhone, iPad and Mac with buttons to redeem offers, view card details for different categories, and refresh your current location. Educational Widgets Study with Subwords introduces new interactive widgets called Study Snacks which are tiny study puzzles that you’ll get multiple times per day. The puzzles can do things like learn other languages, as shown in the example below. Study will automatically show you new ones throughout the day, or let you jump to the next one at any time. A new Apple Watch app will also bring your lists to your wrist similar to the interactive widget. Image Credits: Study with Subwords Cheatsheet Notes Cheatsheet Notes allows you to put notes and reminders in a widget so you can easily access them. The app is introducing an interactive widget for deleting a note instantly. Image Credits: Cheatsheet Notes Lookup Dictionary app Lookup has an interactive widget that easily lets you shuffle “word of the day” so you can enhance your vocabulary without leaving the screen. You can also tap on the speaker icon to learn the pronunciation or like the word to add to your liked list. Image Credits: Lookup Fun Widgets Söka Bucket list app Söka has interactive widgets that will suggest goals to complete based on a few factors. Users will be able to tap on Complete on the widget after they’ve done the activity suggested. The widget will come in small and medium sizes. Image Credits: Söka Widgle Widgle is a puzzle in a widget form. The widget has different puzzles like picture solving and a maze that you can play without leaving the screen. It’s a fun way to pass some time. Sndb Sndb, a soundboard app for iOS users, has prepared tappable widgets that let you play a variety of sounds like an airhorn, bomb or whoopee cushion fart from your iPhone Home Screen. Your kids are going to love this one! Image Credits: Snbd Classic Widget Games Cromulent Labs has developed a collection of 6 different classic games that can be played directly on your Home Screen in iOS 17 and your desktop on macOS Sonoma. The games include Checkers, Minesweeper, Slide Puzzle, Chess, Tic Tac Toe, and 4 in a Row. The company hopes to have these ready by the time iOS 17 releases on Monday. Image Credits: Cromulent Labs Dice Roll Dice Roll’s app…
