New concept brings live widgets to the iPhone home screen on iOS 14

Springkit Classes (Image credit: Parker Ortolani)

What you need to know

A new concept reimagines widgets on the iPhone.
Widgets could live amongst your normal app icons.
"Live icons" could provide quick functionality or more information.

It is rumored that Apple may be making changes to the way it integrates widgets on iOS 14, and a designer has come up with a concept as to what that may look like.

UV Designer Parker Ortolani has put together a concept showing off what widgets on the home screen could look like and function on the iPhone.

The concept shows how widgets could live among your normal app icons and either give you immediate functionality like taking a photo or display live information like the weather, something similar to what Microsoft has done with live tiles on Windows Phone.

Alright, here's my concept for adding widgets to the iOS home screen. I call it SpringKit. Three icon classes for developers to pick from that users can also switch between. All of them fall into the existing grid and customization features. https://t.co/JYDmUZrAFp pic.twitter.com/Vj60AXbTjmAlright, here's my concept for adding widgets to the iOS home screen. I call it SpringKit. Three icon classes for developers to pick from that users can also switch between. All of them fall into the existing grid and customization features. https://t.co/JYDmUZrAFp pic.twitter.com/Vj60AXbTjm— Parker Ortolani (@ParkerOrtolani) April 6, 2020 April 6, 2020

He also posted a video in which he shows off how you could switch back and forth from a normal app icon to a "live icon".

Check out a demo of how my widget concept works on iPhone… pic.twitter.com/TxNOjhbPTXCheck out a demo of how my widget concept works on iPhone… pic.twitter.com/TxNOjhbPTX— Parker Ortolani (@ParkerOrtolani) April 6, 2020 April 6, 2020

While we still are not sure what exactly Apple will do with widgets in iOS 14, if anything, it would be very useful for the company to integrate them directly into the home screen. For those with iPadOS, it is easy to access widgets as the can now live on the home screen. However, iPhone users would benefit greatly from a concept like this.

Joe Wituschek is a Contributor at iMore. With over ten years in the technology industry, one of them being at Apple, Joe now covers the company for the website. In addition to covering breaking news, Joe also writes editorials and reviews for a range of products. He fell in love with Apple products when he got an iPod nano for Christmas almost twenty years ago. Despite being considered a "heavy" user, he has always preferred the consumer-focused products like the MacBook Air, iPad mini, and iPhone 13 mini. He will fight to the death to keep a mini iPhone in the lineup. In his free time, Joe enjoys video games, movies, photography, running, and basically everything outdoors.