Apple’s highly anticipated iOS 14 was released on September 16th, and it DID NOT disappoint — even the equestrians! 😉
In this digital age, everyone has a phone at their hip. It’s your livelihood; banking, social media, files & sdocuments, email, messaging, and so much more! All accessible at your fingertips. Apple’s lastest iOS 14 update allows users to completely personalize their phones. Here are the tops widget apps and new features you NEED to know about, to unlock your iPhones fullest potential.
1) Widgetsmith
Widgetsmith is an awesome app that allows you to customize your homescreen with extra features; date, time, notes, activity levels, photos, even astrology maps and lunar patterns. The best part is you can change almost every design aspect; widget size, font, text colour, background colour, add borders… It is awesome, and free!
I love to use this widget app to customize my homescreen with the date, time, and my own motivational mantras. You can download my equestrian themed motivational mantras HERE (it’s totally free and safe, don’t worry)!
2) Shortcuts
This is an app provided by Apple that comes with most iPhones. This app allows you to customize the cover of any app. Simply add a new shortcut > add the action “Open App” > Choose the desired app > Click the three dots in the upper right hand corner > Name the shortcut the title of the app > Tap the icon of the shortcut > Select “Choose Photo” > Save! I have an IGTV tutorial showing how exactly you can do this. It’s an amazing hack for creating a personalized aesthetic.
3) Motivation
This is an awesome app that gives you daily motivational quotes! You can select the type of quotes you wish to (i.e. self esteem, motivation, fitness, etc…), and customize the theme to match your aesthetic.
4) MusicView / TuneTrack
This is an awesome music widget. You can control your music right from your homescreen. As far as I know, it works for both Apple Music and Spotify. An alternate FREE version of this app is TuneTrack! Based off the reviews, it can be hit or miss with Spotify.
5) Steve
This is an adorable, and oddly entertaining game that you can play whenever you need to kill some time.[
Top Five Favourite *NEW* Features
1) Mirrored Front Camera
Everyone’s seen the inverted filter trend on TikTok. If you haven’t, it’s basically a filter that inverts your camera to show you how people see you in-person IRL. When taking selfies, your iPhone flips them horizontally after they are taken – no wonder those golden hour selfies looked a little off… Go to your Settings > Camera > Activate the “Mirror Front Camera” option under the Composition heading, and you are good to go!
2) Preview & Organize Your Homescreen Pages
This one is really cool for organization and efficiency purposes. You can quickly view your entire phone, all of it’s page, by pressing down on your screen (until it start’s wiggling) > Click the dots on the bottom of your screen, above the taskbar, and VOILA! You can check / uncheck the boxes to “hide” certain screens.
3) Hide Apps From Your Homescreen
This is my FAVOURITE feature. This feature allows you to hide apps you don’t need cluttering your screen, aka non-essential apps, without deleting them! You can remove apps from your homescreen by pressing down on your screen (until it wiggles) > Click the subtraction icon in the top left corner of the app > Select “Move to App Library”. This moves the app to your App Library, which can be accessed by swiping right to your very last home page. I love the app library, because it automatically organizes your apps according to the category as well!
4) Pinning Conversations in iMessages
This might sound like a very boring and useless task, however, it is very practical for us WFH peeps. I use my phone for everything and communicating with everyone. My conversations often get lost, but now you can pin important people that you need to access more quickly! So practical.
5) Picture in Picture
This is a feature that many iPad users are familiar with. We can now enjoy watching Netflix, Youtube, and Disney+ while checking our emails, replying to texts, playing a game, and more. This feature simply creates a smaller window for you to multitask o your screen. I personally love watching shows and movies while drawing, checking emails, or brainstorming content!
I hope you guys enjoyed this little blog post! Head over to my IGTV Channel for video tutorials on how to add and customize widgets, and how to add and customize your app covers. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or app suggestions, feel free to drop a comment and I will get back to you (: Until next time lovelies, tally-ho!