Limitation of iOS 14 widget

Although there are many advantages in iOS 14 widget, there are several major limitations in current iOS design.

1. Widget cannot have own logic. Every time the user taps the widget, the app will be opened. Widget are not interactive.

2. Small widget (2*2) can only have one tap action, regardless where user taps it.

3. the goal percent in "Current running task" and "Selected Task / tag" will be topped at 200. As the widget itself cannot have logic in it, in order to have the number ticking from 1 to 200, ATracker need to send 200 data set to the widget to have it changing. Apple has a restriction on how intensive the widget can change per day, and CPU allowance. We do not want to exceed that limit, which will cause the widget to fail.

4. iOS allows the duration in Widget to keep ticking without additional data set, with some restriction. We cannot omit the "second" info, or make it smaller or use another color. We cannot change the format of that info either.

3. All communication and data feed for widget display is from ATacker main app. So if user start / stop task via pre-iOS 14 interactive widget, Siri shortcuts, web version or Apple Watch, the change will not be reflected in the iOS 14 widget. Only when user open the ATracker app, it will be updated.

After reading iOS documentation, we think the web version and Apple Watch sync with Widget is not feasible in current iOS 14 design. But the data communication from old widget and Siri shortcuts to the iOS 14 widget is officially allowed. It is blocked by a known iOS 14 bug. We hope that the bug can be fixed in future iOS 14 patches. We will release an updated version of ATracker after Apple fixes the bug.

By the way, some user report ATracker iOS 14 widget cannot be found in the widget search. Please reboot the device, then start / stop a task in ATracker app and then search for the widget again. This is a known iOS 14 bug. It rarely happens though. 

Thanks for your understanding!