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What is an iPad Widget?

And How Do I Install One?
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By Bill Crowe, 1 Vice President, Sarasota Technology User’s Group, FL
March 2017 issue, Sarasota Monitor
www.thestug.org
Widgets are small apps that run on a device’s in- a popular alternative to traditional typing (or tap-
terface, such as a clock or a widget that tells you the ping, as we do on our tablets). An Android key-
current weather. While widgets have been popular board alternative, Swype lets you draw words in-
on Android and Windows RT tablets for a while now, stead of tap them out, which ultimately leads to
they haven’t made their way to the iPad... until now. faster and more accurate typing. (It’s also amazing
The iOS 8 update brought “Extensibility” to the iPad. how quickly you can get used to the idea). For in-
Extensibility is a cool feature that allows a snippet of formation on installing third-party keyboards, we’ll
an app to run within another app. This allows widg- have to wait until third-party keyboards arrive in the
ets to run on the iPad via the Notification Center. App Store. Several have already been confirmed,
You’ll be able to customize the notification center to including Swype.
show widgets and choose which widgets to show in
the notification center. You can also choose to ac- What Other Ways Can I Use a Widget?
cess the notification center while the iPad is locked,
so you can see your widget without typing in your Because extensibility is the ability for an app to run
passcode. within another app, widgets can expand almost any
app. For example, you can use the Pinterest app
How do I Install a Widget on My iPad? as a widget by installing it into Safari as an addi-
tional way to share web pages. You can also use
Widgets can be installed into the Notification Center photo editing apps like Litely inside of the iPad’s
by opening notifications by sliding your finger down, Photos app, which gives you a single place to edit
careful to start at the very top of the screen, and a photo and use features from other photo-editing
then tapping the ‘Edit’ button located at the end of apps.
your active notifications. The edit screen is split into
those widgets that will display in the Notification How to Reorder Widgets on the iPad Notifica-
Center and those that are installed on the device but tion Center
not currently showing with the other notifications. To
install a widget, simply tap the green button with the Now that you have added a few widgets to the
plus sign next to it. To remove a widget, tap the red iPad’s Notification Center, it might occur to you that
button with the minus sign and then tap the remove widgets further down the page would be more use-
button that appears to the right of the widget. Yes, ful towards the top. For example, the Yahoo
it’s that simple. Once the widget is installed, it will be Weather widget makes a great replacement for the
displayed when you open the Notification Center. default weather widget, but it won’t do you as much
good if it is at the bottom of the list. You can easily
Will There Be a Separate ‘Widget’ Store? reorder widgets in the Notification Center by drag-
ging a widget and dropping it in the order you want
The way Apple has implemented widgets is by al- it to appear.
lowing an app to display a custom interface within
another app. This means a widget is just an app that • First, you need to be in edit mode. You
allows part of itself to be shown in another app, can enter edit mode by scrolling down
which in this case is the notification center. Sound to the bottom of the Notification Center
confusing? It’s not. If you want to see sports scores and tapping the edit button.
in your notification center, you can simply download • Next, tap the three horizontal lines next
a sports app like ScoreCenter from the app store. to the widget, and without removing
The app will need to support becoming a widget in your finger from the screen, drag it up
the notification center, but you don’t need to install a or down the list.
special version of the app. Once installed, you can
configure which apps to show in the notification cen- This makes a great way of customizing the Notifi-
ter through the iPad’s notification settings. cation Center and quickly getting at the information
or widgets you want to see most. Unfortunately,
Can I Use a Widget to Replace the On-Screen Apple doesn’t allow a widget to go above the To-
Keyboard? day Summary and Traffic Conditions or below the
Tomorrow Summary.
Another exciting benefit of Extensibility is the ability
to use third-party keyboards. Swype has long been Source and Compliments lifewire.com

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