The Today View widgets are a great way to quickly take a look at important information in iOS. With iPadOS 13 you can make the widgets visible on your home screen.
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With iPadOS 13, Apple has redirected the iOS codepad and created an iPad-specific version that retains all the functions of iOS, but with extra goodies that only iPad users can experience.
One of those new features is the ability to add widgets to the home screen. These widgets were previously – and still are on iOS – tucked away in the Today View by swiping all the way to the home screen, or by going down to the Message Center and swiping to the right. With this new feature, you now always have the widgets on the first home screen on your iPad, giving you faster access to important information.
SEE: Apple iOS 13: a cheat sheet (free PDF) (TechRepublic)
In this tutorial, we look at how you can enable this feature on your iPad home screen and how you can customize the widget list and select which widgets to display on the home screen.
How to display the widget display temporarily in iPadOS 13
If you do not want the Today view to always be displayed on the home screen, you can choose to hide it or display it in the first pane of the home screen. Swipe from left to right on the home screen and it will be visible on the left. Swipe from left to right to hide it and it will be hidden again (Figure A).
Figure A
Swiping from left to right on the first home screen makes the Today view visible on iPadOS 13.
Cory Bohon / TechRepublic
Show widgets permanently on the home screen in iPadOS 13
If you have the ability to view things on the home screen, you can keep the Today view on the first home screen by following these steps.
- Open the Settings app.
- Navigate to Start Screen & Dock.
- Select the ON switch for Keep Today View On Home Screen (Figure B).
Figure B
If you select the Keep today on home screen option, it will be permanently visible on the first home screen.
Cory Bohon / TechRepublic
Note: This option can only be selected if the selection of more app icons is enabled. If you use the app icons from the larger home screen, you cannot enable this option and take advantage of the always-active Today view.
Adjust which widgets are displayed in iPadOS 13
Now that you have the widgets on the home screen, it’s time for the fun part: configuring what is displayed on the home screen. To do this, complete the following steps.
- Display the Today view using the steps above (if not already displayed).
- Scroll to the end of the Today view.
- Select Edit.
- In the screen that appears, select the green + next to the items that you want to add to the Today view (Figure C), or the – next to the items you want to delete.
Use the drag handles to the right of the items in the Today view to rearrange the items in the list. There is a pinned favorites section that only appears in iPadOS 13 – dragging items to this list ensures that those items in the pinned area are available in the Today view. The Favorites section is only visible after you swipe up in the Today view to view the rest of the favorites.
Figure C
The fixed favorites are always visible on the home screen; Favorites are only displayed after you swipe up in the Today view on the home screen.
Cory Bohon / TechRepublic
