Apple's iOS 14 update came out for most of the world yesterday - surprising even software developers for the platform who had less than 24 hours warning it was going to be released. More on that in a moment.
To Apple's credit, it's almost disappointing whenever you update your iPhone's software because things look and feel mostly the same at first glance. It's only when you start to use it a bit more and some of the new features and polishing of existing features start to come to life.
Which is where Joanna Stern's video, 14 Tips for Apple's New Operating System, is really helpful and a good way to be reminded of what you should be looking for once you've updated your iPhone to iOS 14.
About the Surprise Release - Where Are the 3rd Party Widgets?
Since developers had little warning about the release, a lot of apps aren't ready with support for one of the main features of iOS 14: widgets on the home screen. In my experience, there's a few 3rd party apps that have widget support but most don't have support yet. For example, Pocket Casts, my podcast player app of choice, doesn't have support for it so if I wanted to have a widget for recent podcasts right now I'm limited to Apple's built in podcasts app.
No thanks. (No offence to any Apple devs who somehow read this. Just not my cup of tea.)
If you swipe from left to right on your home screen, you can see what widgets will look like since widgets have been available on that screen for awhile now. Once developers have a chance to update their apps with iOS 14 support, widgets will be a lot more fun to play with.