There’s too much space, not enough information, and feel like a missed opportunity. Widgets are simultaneously cramped and scattered, and even the large-format ones, which take up four columns and two rows and are quite big, are mere extensions of the iPhone version rather than iPad-specific versions. swipe left to right to bring up the widgets screen (from the widget screen, swipe down to search). Here’s the default Dashboard weather widget, as supplied by Apple (you can push F4 on your keyboard to get Dashboard, btw): Put your cursor over it, however, and a tiny little i shows up on the bottom right corner: Click on it and the entire widget swings horizontally around and shows you the. swipe right to left to bring up the camera. Let me show you, with the weather widget. In iOS 10, from the lock screen, the only swipe gestures are. But even if you follow that example, it still doesn’t feel like a fluid Home Screen. To wake the device and go directly to the passcode entry screen (if you don't use fingerprint recognition), press the home button twice. I wondered why Apple’s iPadOS 15 screenshots showed widgets at the top of the screen and icons at the bottom, and it’s clearly because that’s how they look best.
The widget gallery available in Today View and Home screen editing mode on iPhone and iPad, and Notification Center on Mac helps people find the widgets they want in the sizes that work for them. You can see it in Apple’s preview images. On iPhone and iPad, widgets appear on the Home screen or in Today View on a Mac, Notification Center displays widgets. In iOS 14, the Today screen was basically plopped onto the left side of the first Home Screen in a scrollable column of iOS-style widgets, but in iPadOS 15 they’re more integrated but still not really part of the whole. While it’s an improvement over the previous method, which moved widgets out of the Notification Center and onto the Home Screen in a somewhat slipshod way, widgets somehow still look out of place. While widgets were restricted to the Notification Center in iOS, users can now finally put widgets on the home screen of their iPhone and iPad with the latest version of the operating system. It feels like two systems running side by side rather than in unison.
Since there’s more vertical and horizontal space around the widgets, they look like they’re floating between the grid rather than part of it.