There are a lot of variations depending on the app, and unfortunately this leads to inconsistency in design, in sizes and shapes.
Live tiles for android android#
I currently own a Samsung Galaxy S8 with Android 9 and Samsung’s One UI, version 1.0. But these discussions about upcoming widgets in iOS sparked my interest, so I started experimenting with widgets a bit. After switching from iOS two years ago I simply put my most used apps on my – single – home screen and relied on search for the rest. Tom WarrenĮven though I love Live Tiles, I have never been a fan of widgets on Android. It’s not the first time we’ve seen Windows Phone features appear in iOS or Android, and it underlines how important Microsoft’s mobile efforts were even if they were a glorious failure. You could pin almost anything useful to the home screen, and Live Tiles animated beautifully to flip over and provide tiny nuggets of information that made your phone feel far more personal and alive.Īpple has taken the best of both Android widgets and Windows Phone’s Live Tiles and combined them into iOS 14. They enabled apps to show information on the home screen, similar to the widgets found on Android and iOS. Live Tiles were one of Windows Phone’s most unique features. It’s the final addition to the iPhone that I’ve been missing from Windows Phone, 10 years after Microsoft first introduced Live Tiles to the world. Apple’s overhauled iOS 14 home screen finally does that, enabling lively widgets for apps that sit on the home screen. I’ve always wanted Apple to bring these Live Tiles to the iPhone.