Widgets on the home screen of your iPhone

The widgets are not new – they were first introduced in iOS 10 – but for the first time, you can place them on the home screen with your applications. It’s a much-appreciated feature on Android, and it’s great to see Apple finally adopt widgets after all these years. 

There are tons of new widgets for iOS 14, including those for fitness rings (great for Apple Watch owners ) , battery life, Maps, Photos, and more. 

We also come across what Apple calls a Smart Stack widget that will provide you with Siri app suggestions right on your home screen. Everything is based on your habits and has been very useful to us, especially now that not all applications live on the home screen. 

To add widgets to your home screen in iOS 14, simply tap and hold anywhere on your home screen until your app’s icons start to move. Then, tap on the ‘+’ icon in the upper left, select the widget you want to place and drop it on your home screen. 

The only widgets available right now are the built-in apps, but there’s a lot of interest in what app developers will offer once iOS 14 is officially released later this year. 

Could we see an Android-style Spotify widget to control music playback? We can only wait. 

Tap again to open applications

It may not be one of the main features of iOS 14, but Apple quietly added a new feature to its set of accessibility options: the ability to activate functions with a double or triple tap on the back of your iPhone. 

You can configure the function to lock your smartphone, access the control center or even open applications such as Messages or Instagram through shortcuts, and it works on a variety of iPhones, not only on the latest models.

We have explained how to touch to open applications in iOS 14 separately for those interested. 

Delete apps from your home screen

For the first time in iOS history, you have the option to remove an app from your home screen without deleting it entirely. It will still be accessible through widgets , the App Gallery, and the search bar, but you won’t mess up your home screen. Plus, with the widgets now available, you’ll need as much space as you can get!

To remove an app without deleting it, simply press and hold until the app’s icons move, tap the x, and hit ‘Remove from Home Screen’. If you need more information,

Say goodbye to full screen calls

Have you ever been playing or typing a message on your iPhone, only to be interrupted by a phone call? Well, that’s a thing of the past in iOS 14, which shows incoming calls in the form of a banner at the top of the screen. 

Even answering the call won’t take up the entire screen, and you’re free to interact with your applications while your call is at the top of the screen.

If you want the experience of a full screen phone, you can touch the banner at the top to enlarge it. It’s a simple change, but one that dramatically changes the overall iOS experience. 

Delete pages from your home screen

In addition to removing individual apps from the home screen, you can get rid of entire pages at once. But, unlike removing individual apps, you can re-add pages with a tap, without dragging and dropping apps from the App Gallery one by one. 

To hide the pages, simply touch and hold on the home screen until the icons start to move, and then tap the apps page icon (dots) at the bottom of the screen. From there, it’s as simple as unchecking the pages you want to hide and tapping ‘Done’ to apply the change. 

No more pauses in FaceTime calls

Picture-in-picture is a staple not only of Android, but also of iPadOS, so it was only a matter of time before Apple introduced the functionality to the iPhone. 

In iOS 14, you can enable picture-in-picture on any video you’re watching, reducing the video to a small box that will sit in the corner of your screen as you browse, swipe, and type.

Picture-in-picture mode also works with FaceTime, allowing you to minimize incoming video calls while accessing other applications without having to pause your camera. Perfect for those … less interesting FaceTime chats. 

Although it is apparently limited to first-hand apps in the iOS 14 beta, we imagine it’s a feature that third-party app developers will use once the software is officially released later this year. It is unlikely to be compatible with the YouTube app, but there is a way to view YouTube videos through PiP. 

Use the App Gallery

We’ve mentioned it several times, so it’s time to tackle it: the App Gallery. Accessible through sideswipe , it is what makes it possible to remove applications from the home screen, presenting all the installed applications as a list or through smart folders.

Hello translation app! 

In response to the hugely popular Google Translate app, Apple has included its own version in iOS 14. It’s called Translate, and it does what it expects: it translates text or voice from one language to another.

Right now, it supports English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese (Mainland), German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Russian, with offline translation available for all languages, although it may not be as accurate as when you have an active connection. You also have the option to prefer practical translations, perfect for quick reference when traveling to another country (when it happens again!). 

You can also use Siri to get quick translations on the go. Just ask Siri to translate a phrase into another language and it will, and it will also provide a handy button that will have Apple’s virtual assistant repeat it on your behalf. None of this is really new compared to the Google Translate app, but it’s nice to see Apple finally get into the fight. 

Another year, another Messaging update – and this one comes in handy. If you want to ensure easy access to the text threads of the people you care about, you can now place the chat at the top of your message list. It’s also easy to do: just tap and hold a conversation and tap Pin, or jump straight to any message thread. 

Updated Siri

Siri has finally received an update, now it occupies a small segment at the bottom of the screen while darkening the rest of the screen. When activated, it appears as a colorful orb, pulsing while listening to your request. Siri’s answer, in the form of responses and information cards that can be touched, will appear at the top of the screen. 

Siri is smarter than ever, too, bragging about the ability to search the web and resources like Wikipedia to provide answers to your questions – no more “this is what I found on the web” answers. 

That should put Siri more in line with Google Assistant, which has traditionally been light years ahead of Apple’s choice in terms of general knowledge queries. 

Change your Memoji

Memoji is one of the most artificial reasons to get an iPhone, but people love it, and Apple knows it. iOS 14 brings with it a ton of new options to customize your digital avatar, including the option to put on a face mask and the ability to age your Memoji characters as well.