The same, but different
Universal widgets may sound like a rust belt normcore band, but they’re the new big noise on the iPadOS 14 Home screen
Your Home screen remains similar to iPadOS 13. Unlike in iOS 14, widgets can’t be mixed in with your app icons, and there’s no App Library view when you swipe all the way to the left. On the first Home screen, swiping right squishes up the icons to reveal Today View, where you will start to see the differences: widgets appear in a new format, and no longer show titles. By default, the top widget is a stack: swipe up or down on it to rotate between widgets.
To rearrange your Today View, press a widget and drag. To change widgets, simply press one and hold — ignoring the pop–up menu that appears — until the Home screen goes into “jiggly mode.” Then tap “–” to remove a widget, or tap “+” at the top–left of the screen to add another from those provided by your apps. To add widgets that haven’t been updated for iPadOS 14, scroll to the bottom of Today View (still jiggling) and tap Customize.
Some widgets display an Edit Widget option when you long–press on them (or tap in jiggly mode). For example, the Weather widget lets you choose a location. Unlike in macOS Big Sur, options don’t include size. So if Weather is a Small widget and you want to see more, go into jiggly mode and remove it, then tap “+” at the top–left, tap Weather, and swipe left to see the Medium and Large size options. Tap Add Widget to use the size shown. To make stacks, drag a widget onto another. This can’t be undone. Long–press and choose Edit Stack to reorder widgets or turn on Smart Rotate, meaning iPadOS shows the widget most likely to be relevant right now. From the “+” in jiggly mode, pick Smart Stack to create a stack with widgets chosen for you. Once accepted, the list is fixed. Another smart option is the Siri Suggestions widget, which constantly repopulates itself with relevant actions.