Widget

Copy & Paste is a handy clipboard manager widget

Lory Gil ∙ October 18, 2014

Sometimes, I want to quickly access a very specific or short bit of text, like a phone number from an email that I don’t want to save to my contacts, or a quote from a movie that I want to remember to share with a friend. I will usually copy text and save it in my Notes app, but there is now an easier way to store multiple copied pieces of text without having to even open an app.

Copy & Paste | Clipboard Widget is a simple app with one very useful feature. Copy any bit of text or image and it will automatically be saved in the Today section of Notification Center. You don’t even have to keep the app open in Multitasking for it to work.

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5 awesome widgets for iOS 8 [Video]

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated October 13, 2018

Now that iOS has finally adopted third-party widgets, many developers have been scrambling to update their apps to include them. While I think that widgets can be useful, I find that a lot of the widgets released so far have been somewhat unnecessary, or at best, poorly implemented.

But that’s not to say that the idea or concept of a widget is necessarily a bad thing. Indeed, widgets can be a very good thing if implemented properly.

That just happens to be the case with the following five widgets that I discuss in this post. Check inside for a video overview of five of my favorite iOS 8 Notification Center widgets.

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Microsoft updates Bing Search app with translation widget in Safari and Notification Center

Christian Zibreg ∙ September 23, 2014

First demoed at WWDC 2014 back in June, Microsoft's Bing translation widget and custom actions for Safari and the Notification Center in iOS 8 is now available by way of an update to the free Bing Search app for the iPhone and iPod touch devices. Available free of charge in the App Store, the new Bing Search 5.0.1 also contains bug fixes.

As shown on the screenshots top of post, enabling the Bing Search Translation action in Safari requires that you bring up the Share sheet in Safari.

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TeeVee 3 updated with iOS 8 Today widget, interactive alerts and now free

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 13, 2018

TeeVee 3, a TV show-tracking app that I reviewed in May by Tomas Perzl of the Czech Republic and Slovakia-based CrazyApps Team, now lets you tweet out upcoming episodes or mark the ones you've seen as watched, directly from the notification itself, and also see which shows are coming next in the Today view of the iOS Notification Center, thanks to its iOS 8-focused update released yesterday.

Other new features available in this excellent iPhone and iPad app include new sorting options (Alphabetically, Reverse, AirDate and Unwatched), the ability to delete a show by long-pressing it in the list and several bug fixes.

As a cherry on top, the team has decided to discount the $2.99 app to zero bucks, for a limited time, in an effort to bring in new customers. If you're going to grab the latest TeeVee 3.1 update, please keep in mind that the app now requires iOS 8.

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The best new features of iOS 8

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated July 25, 2023

Admittedly, the myriad of new and useful capabilities that Apple's just-released iOS 8 brings to your iPhone, iPod touch and iPad are going to prove hugely popular with mainstream users, to say the least. With iOS 8, Apple is appeasing harsh critics who'd frequently point out that Android is capable of things iOS cannot do, and then some more.

iOS 8 opens up Apple's mobile operating system to third-party development to a much greater extent than ever before. And stemming from relaxed policies, iOS 8 boosts on-the-go productivity with deeper inter-app sharing while implementing some of the features our Android friends have grown accustomed to, but in a typical hassle-free Apple fashion, things like third-party keyboards, custom actions, photo editing extensions within the context of Photos and Camera apps and way more.

And though evolutionary rather than revolutionary, we have no doubt in our minds that iOS 8 is going to significantly improve the functionality of Apple's mobile platform, and perhaps even give some folks less reasons to jailbreak.

To celebrate today's release of the free iOS 8 software update, we proudly present you this detailed overview of more than two dozen iOS 8 features we think you're going to fall in love with at first sight.

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iOS 8 apps with Notification Center widgets

Timothy Reavis ∙ Updated November 19, 2018

Now that iOS 8 is here, developers are releasing updates to their apps and launching new apps altogether that take advantage of iOS 8's many new functionalities. Many popular apps are being updated to support Notification Center widgets in the Today view for displaying information and performing actions without having to open the app. We've compiled an extensive list of apps that support iOS 8's new Notification Center APIs and are available to download and install on iOS 8. We're working to populate the index continuously as more updates are released, so check back frequently. If you know of an app that currently has iOS 8 Notification Center widget support but isn't listed below, send us an email at tips@idownloadblog.com or comment below with a link to the app!

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Philips demos Notification Center widget on iOS 8 for controlling Hue lights

Joe Rossignol ∙ Updated November 19, 2018

Just a few hours ago, Philips tweeted a concept image of a prototype Notification Center widget that could be used for controlling its Hue lineup of iOS connected bulbs and lights. As it stands, this functionality is provided through the Philips Hue app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. But this extension concept reveals that users could have more convenient access to an off button and different lighting settings without launching the app.

Notification Center widgets are a new feature in iOS 8 that Apple announced at its WWDC keynote earlier this week. Developers are able to build extensions that provide systemwide functionality through widgets in Today view, something that has been possible through jailbreaking for several years. In fact, there is already a jailbreak tweak called HueHueHue for controlling Philips Hue lights through Control Center. This prototype is a similar concept…

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iOS 8 brings widgets to Notification Center

Cody Lee ∙ June 2, 2014

Moving along with Apple's iOS 8 portion of its WWDC keynote, Craig Federighi just introduced widgets. Like the stock widgets we've seen before, iOS 8's widgets will appear in the Notification Center and offer quick information for apps at a glance...

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Concept imagines how Apple could implement Home screen widgets in iOS

Christian Zibreg ∙ May 30, 2014

Ah, the widgets. Among the defining Android features, widgets regularly find themselves on top of many people's wish list for iOS. Apple does not provide iOS widget functionality, though it's a non-issue to folks who are jailbroken thanks to literally hundreds, if not thousands, of widgets in Cydia.

I guess you could go as far as saying widgets are one of the prime allures of jailbreaking. While no one outside Apple can't really tell whether or not the company will ever allow widgets into the App Store, we can always speculate: there's (some) hope for widgets in iOS as Tim Cook alluded to opening up iOS a little bit more for third party developers in the future.

Until that day comes, non-jailbreakers are stuck with a bunch of concepts. Enter Jay Machalani, the brains behind this remarkable concept envisioning widgets in iOS. 'iOS Blocks', as he calls them, resemble Live Tiles in Windows and can be moved around and placed anywhere on the Home screen with a simple gesture...

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New Fantastical, Calculator, and iDB ProWidgets reviewed

Jeff Benjamin ∙ April 30, 2014

Slowly but surely, the ProWidgets add-ons keep trickling out. Today's bounty—a release of three new widgets to the ProWidgets library—is the result of the efforts of a single developer. Tim Perin, the developer of Calculator ProWidget, Fantastical ProWidget, and an unofficial iDB ProWidget, is the one responsible for single-handedly turning the platform into something that's a bit more decently supported.

In my review of ProWidgets, I stated that only time would tell the true success of the tweak, with much of the success relying on the jailbreak community to lend its support developing new add-ons. I think it's safe to say that the support hasn't been as good as most would have hoped, but today's series of releases is a definite step in the right direction.

Check out our video walkthrough after the break, as I showcase all three widgets in action.

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Recent ‘ProWidgets’ update adds a simple Grey theme

Jeff Benjamin ∙ March 30, 2014

A few weeks ago, we reviewed ProWidgets—a tweak that I believe is amongst the best of jailbreak releases. The tweak by itself is very well done, but my sentiments were also based on ProWidgets' potential with regard to expandability.

The version of ProWidgets that I reviewed didn't include the simple grey theme that's now available with the latest ProWidgets update. Although it's not technically a third-party theme, this is one of the first big changes that we've seen to ProWidgets since our initial review. Have a look inside as we showcase the tweak's simple grey theme on video.

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