With iOS 14, Apple lets users customize their iPhone home screens with widgets for the first time — which has become extremely popular. New research by Sensor Tower reveals that nearly 15% of iPhone users in the U.S. have already installed at least one app to change the look of the iOS 14 home screen.
The research company has tracked the download numbers of the five most popular apps available on the App Store that offer multiple home screen widgets: Widgetsmith, Color Widgets, Photo Widget: Simple, WidgetBox, and Photo Widget.
According to Sensor Tower, these apps together have been installed in over 13 million iPhones just in the United States since the launch of iOS 14 on September 16. On September 21, all the mentioned apps were downloaded over 3.8 million times.
Widgets have been commonplace on Android devices for more than a decade. Over the past two months, iPhone users have shown an enduring interest in adding these useful shortcuts to their home screens as well. As the ecosystem continues to grow on Apple devices, developers have the opportunity to identify innovative ways to meet this new consumer demand and potentially achieve greater engagement via increased homescreen real estate.
Back in September, Pinterest broke its daily download record on the App Store thanks to iOS 14 widgets, although the app didn’t even offer any kind of widget at the time. That’s because users were downloading Pinterest to look for iOS 14 home screen layout inspiration. The app registered about 616,000 downloads on the App Store on September 21.
The research also mentions an increase in searches for apps that offer replacement icons for iOS, which also became popular after the release of iOS 14. With iOS 14.3, which is currently available as a beta release, users will be able to create app shortcuts with custom icons without being redirected to the Shortcuts app, which should further increase interest in these modifications.
Have you tried customizing your iOS 14 home screen with these apps? Let us know in the comments section below.
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