A few weeks in, I’m still not sure why I should embrace iOS 14’s most notable feature: widgets. But developer Mark Hambly has managed to convince me to give up some of my precious home screen real estate with a simple widget that displays Nasa’s Astronomy Picture of the Day every time I unlock my iPhone.
The free APOD Astronomy Pics and Widget app (which also doesn’t contain any ads) is available in the iTunes App Store right now for iPhones and iPads running iOS 14, naturally, and while functionality is simple, it does the one thing it promises to very well. Users can add the widget to their home screen in three different sizes; a 2×2 or 4×4 square, or a wider 2×4 rectangle, and every day it will automatically refresh and display the current Nasa Astronomy Picture of the Day.
Clicking on the widget pops up Nasa’s official description of the image for those who aren’t just in it for the eye candy. If you don’t think you have the patience to wait a whole day for the widget to update with new imagery, there are alternate versions of the APOD widget as well including one that displays a random Astronomy Picture of the Day every time you unlock and open your phone, and one that only shows your favourites which can be denoted in Hambly’s app.
As Apple continues to open up its mobile operating systems and enhance the ways users can customise their devices, maybe one day even dynamic wallpapers will happen. As entertaining as this widget is for astronomy fans, the images are still relatively small, and I’d much prefer to see my iPhone’s lock screen wallpaper updated with the Nasa APOD every morning.