Agenda: Widget+ is an application whose sole purpose is to display a list of your future calendar events in Notification Center. The app itself, which actually acts as the preferences panel for the widget, offers multiple options to fine-tune the data displayed in Notification Center.
One of my favorite social networking sites right now is Instagram. I love looking at pictures more than reading about how someone feels about the weather today. Pictures really can be worth a thousand words and can make you feel more connected to friends than a sentence.
Feeday is a third-party widget that puts the last couple of posts from your Instagram feed right in Notification Center so you can get a quick view of your feed without having to open the app. Check out our app review of Feeday below.
When it comes to the daily task of rummaging through email messages, I spend the first 30-minutes of my workday just trying to get my inbox under control. I can quickly delete or archive more than half of them, which helps me feel like I've made some progress
eMail Widget is a Notification Center app that allows users, not only to see new messages in their inbox, but perform a few basic actions in order to keep things under control without having to open a dedicated app.
The Mac’s copy and paste function is generally not something I think about. Sure, I use it. In fact, I use it every single day. It’s just that I never have to think about it. It’s a universal constant. No matter what machine you’re on or what you are trying to accomplish, copy/paste always works the same way. It always does the exact same thing and with the exact same limitations. Dmitry Obukhov’s Paste seeks to change that.
NCMeters is a non-intrusive tweak for monitoring system vitals via Notification Center. It allows you to check CPU usage, memory and storage usage, and monitor both upload and download speeds.
NCMeters only runs when you have Notification Center open, so it's not going to be overly taxing on system resources when going about your daily business. To ensure accuracy, data is collected using traditional command line tools.
Along with those basics, NCMeters features quite a bit of customization. Have a look at our video walkthrough and see for yourself.
Most people’s biggest gripe with the photo sharing site Instagram is that they can’t upload photos directly from their Macs. There are a few workarounds for this, but most of them are intrusive, labor intensive, and far from user friendly. The aptly titled Uploader for Instagram seeks to simplify this process so that anyone can easily post from whatever device they choose.
Favorite Contacts Launcher allows you to have instant access to your most used numbers. Once downloaded, this app will allow you to quickly call, text, or FaceTime anyone directly from Notification Center. The concept sounds extremely useful to non-jailbreakers, but does this launcher deliver?
If you are a news junkie, you probably have all sorts of alerts set up to let you know the moment a story breaks. Wouldn’t it be nice if your RSS feeds were available right in the Today view of Notification Center?
Breaking – News in your Today tab populates your favorite news feeds in Notification Center for iOS and OS X, so you access stories you want to read without having to open a special app for it. All of your news is right in front of you, available with one swipe or click.
Like its iOS counterpart, Notification Center for Mac comes bundled with several stock Today widgets to get you started. However, it's possible to add third-party widgets to Notification Center's Today View by means of the Mac App Store and via direct download. Inside, we'll highlight how to add new widgets to Notification Center along with several widget recommendations.
Last year, we posted information on a research paper and iOS concept called iOS Blocks. Jay Machalani (@technofou), the brains behind the concept, suggests that an interface that combines Windows Phone's live tiles and Android's widgets, would be a best-of-both-worlds-scenario for iOS users.
iOS Blocks would essentially allow users to have proper widgets on the iOS Home screen, but the concept is put together in a way that make it totally seamless and transparent to users who prefer to use iOS like they always have. The widgets would mix the uniformity and standardization enjoyed by Windows live tiles with the interaction of Android's widget system. It's a smart idea with hours of research and presentation. I highly recommend that you read the original post on Machalani's blog.
Obviously, Apple didn't bring any sort of Home screen widget system to iOS 8, but it did give us Notification Center widgets. As if it needs to be said, Notification Center widgets are a far cry from iOS Blocks—a feature that would add significant depth to the iOS Home screen experience.
So after a year, what's been made of this project and its corresponding research? Well, I have some good news: It's being developed into a real working tweak, according to this post on reddit by someone closely associated with the project.
There are dozens of apps out there that offer a streamlined interface so you can find contacts and make phone calls quickly and easily, but how many can you count will put a widget on your Lock screen so you can make phone calls in Notification Center?
YoBu is a Notification Center extension that allows you to search for contacts by name or number, and then call them right from the Today view on your Lock screen.
WidgetCenter—the Reachability piggybacking tweak that we previewed a while back—is finally available on Cydia after some delays. From developer Mitch Treece, who's well-known for tweaks like Aero, Deck, Fancy, and more, it's one of the better looking Reachability releases that I've seen thus far.