While introducing OS X 10.10 Yosemite, Craig Federighi showed off a new widget system for the Mac notification center, allowing users to pin small apps right in the “Today” view — and now we’re learning that the iOS notification center will have a similar feature, as well. In iOS 5 and 6, users could access weather, stocks, and Twitter / Facebook post buttons, but those were removed in favor of the Today view for iOS 7.
Apple will bring third-party widgets to iOS 8
However, now iOS 8 users will be able to add widgets to the iOS notification center — and it sounds like third party apps will be supported, as well. It’s a major change to iOS, giving it perhaps the most comprehensible glanceable information setup that we’ve seen on iOS yet, and gives the OS something that can compete with Android’s widget system and the Windows Phone live tile system.
These widgets will come as part of Apple’s new extensibility system, which will also greatly increase the sharing options for iOS as well as allow users to install things like custom third-party keyboards for the first time.
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