Installs of the top 20 home screen customisation apps, primarily focussed on widgets, collectively touched 13.7 million downloads globally after Apple launched its iOS 14, according to estimates by Sensor Tower, an app intelligence firm.
Home screen customisation, a core feature of iOS 14 allows Apple users to have a unique display for the first time.
“Apple’s iOS 14 has already begun to transform how consumers interact with their iPhone and iPad home screens,” Sensor Tower said.
Widgetsmith, Color Widgets, and Photo Widget were the top three apps installed by users. They rapidly climbed the charts in a week after Apple rolled out its new mobile OS.
The three apps alone generated more than 12.6 million installs globally. This is about 92% of the total 13.7 million installs, according to data from Sensor Tower.
The firm studied top 20 apps that are primarily focused on home screen customisation through widgets, as per their descriptions. It found utilities and productivity as the most common categories among these apps.
Apps like Motivation and TuneTrack, which provide widget functionality on the home screen, also saw a surge in downloads across the App Store globally.
Developers swiftly pushed out updates after the launch of iOS 14 to enable quick access to the apps through widgets. Most of early widget apps have been developed by independent or smaller developers.
Sensor Tower expects these developers to find new ways to customise home screen so that they can deliver real value for consumers.
Larger publishers and brands will likely observe the early success trends and capitalise on this new popular functionality, which can attract, engage, and retain users as adoption of iOS 14 increases, it added.
