Rejoice! YouTube widgets finally arrive for iOS 16 and iPadOS - and they’re glorious

Go straight to your subs from the home screen

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While widgets were introduced iniOS 14andiPadOS 15, apps such asYouTubehave been slow to keep up with implementing these, but a recent update has finally resolved that.

Googlereleased an update that enables twowidgets- one that allows you to open the search bar on YouTube, and another which lets you go directly to your subscribed channels and more.

The bigger widget is something that I’ve been wanting to see fromYouTubesince widgets arrived oniOSback in 2020, especially as it’s an app that I use daily on myiPhoneand moreso oniPad.

Thanks to this update, the ability to get to my lunchtime content has already become quicker and easier to reach.

Cutting down on the presses

I’m subscribed to a bunch of YouTube channels, whether that’s achannel about a certain seriesor acompilation channelto watch as I eat my lunch. Yet I’ve always had to go find the YouTube app on my home screen, go to my Subscriptions, then view the video.

I’ve always seen widgets as shortcuts - as a way of more easily reaching parts of an app in two taps or less, and always believed that YouTube was a perfect fit for this. Yet Google has always been slower than others to keep up with new features of iOS - after all, it does have its ownmobile operating systemto update and maintain.

However, when the company does release updates based on new features, it usually nails the brief, such as thelock screen widgetsit brought out in September.

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The same applies here - having placed the bigger widget on both myiPhoneandiPad’s home screen makes the lunch tradition much easier now - the only thing I’d like to see now is a lock screen widget to do the same, but as that saying (almost) goes, good widgets come to those who wait.

Daryl had been freelancing for 3 years before joining TechRadar, now reporting on everything software-related. In his spare time, he’s written a book, ‘The Making of Tomb Raider’. His second book, ‘50 Years of Boss Fights’, came out in 2024, with a third book coming in 2025. He also has a newsletter called ‘Springboard’. He’s usually found playing games old and new on his Steam Deck, Nintendo Switch, and MacBook Pro. If you have a story about an updated app, one that’s about to launch, or just anything Software-related, drop him a line.

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