A home screen is a small canvas you see a lot. A date, a photo, a few words, or a useful glimpse of your day can change how that space feels.
Widgmate is my work in progress for making that canvas more personal. It’s a native widget studio for iPhone and iPad, built around designs you can make your own.
A starting point, then room to play
An empty canvas gives you freedom. A good starting design gives you momentum. Widgmate makes space for both.
You can begin with an authored design or start from scratch. The editor works with layers: text, photos, symbols, shapes, and more. Typography, colors, placement, and sizing are part of the design rather than choices hidden behind a single preset.
The challenge is making that control approachable. A widget is small, but the number of decisions behind it can grow quickly. The editor needs to help you understand what you’re changing and keep the result in view.
The assistant is one way in
Widgmate includes optional on-device assistance on eligible Apple Intelligence devices. It can help create a starting design and propose supported refinements to a selected layer.
The manual editor remains the foundation. You should be able to keep making things when the model isn’t available, or when you already know exactly what you want.
For a proposed refinement, a preview and a concrete change list make the result reviewable before it is applied. Keeping the original and undoing a change are part of that interaction too.
A design has to work in its real home
A widget lives outside the editor. Different sizes, the information it shows, and the system’s refresh behavior are all part of the experience.
That makes this project a mix of visual design and native engineering. A layout needs to look right, but it also needs to save reliably, keep its meaning across sizes, and behave sensibly when data is unavailable.
Widgmate is still in development. The studio and editing tools are taking shape; broader device and installed-widget checks remain part of the work before a public release.