With the release of iOS 14, Apple first introduced home screen widgets on the iPhone. According to data from Sensor Tower, the top five most popular widget apps have been installed on about 15% of US iPhones.
What are the most popular apps?
The five most popular home screen widget apps are Widgetsmith, Color Widgets, Photo Widget: Simple, WidgetBox and Photo Widget, which have registered i 13 million installations on the iPhone from the US App Store since the public release of iOS 14 on September 16. Their downloads peaked during the week of September 21, when they hit 3.8 million installs.
Globally, the five apps have jointly achieved approximately 45 million installs to date.
In addition to apps focused on home screen widget, with the launch of iOS 14 a series of apps that offer replacement icons for the home screen have also “exploded”. The top five most downloaded apps were Brass, App Icons, Icon Changer +, ScreenKit, and Icon Themer, and they have overall achieved 1.8 million iPhone installs in the US since September 16.
Will widgets become more and more popular?
Widgets have been available on Android devices for over a decade, but they have never been very successful. Over the past couple of months, though, iPhone users have shown tremendous interest in adding these useful shortcuts to the home screen. As the ecosystem continues to grow, developers will have the opportunity to integrate increasingly innovative ways to meet this new consumer demand and potentially make the use of widgets on iOS 14 even more engaging.
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