Widgetbox is jumping on the iPhone bandwagon by releasing a special gallery of widgets tailored to the popular device’s screen.
There are 16 widgets available to start, including an RSS output of The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs and a BART QuickPlanner tool for finding mass transport rides around the Bay Area. A tutorial is being provided for developers to create their own iPhone-ready widgets, which will then go into the gallery.
Despite Jobs’ insistence that all regular websites work well on the iPhone, it’s always nice to see websites tailored for the device because when it comes down to it, pinching to zoom in and out gets tiresome. This new gallery is especially nice because mobile users generally want access to quick information while on the go, and widgets are inherently designed for small bits of consumption. If you find a few widgets you like, you can add them to your home screen for easy access.
Also see Apple’s own gallery for iPhone-ready web apps.
$14.5M in funding for a bunch of crappy widgets?
DHH is sounding better everyday.
apple offers a much larger variety of better apps in thier directory. don’t really see any appeal here.
@Apple also drives a lot more traffic to the apps. Widgetbox is interesting but needs more work.
I found this pretty cool. I’ve already downloaded the FSJ widget.
I think you trolls missed the point: these widgets are generic “web widgets” that you could install elsewhere. With WidgetBox a developer just needs to build his or her widget once and do very little else to get it to work on social networks, start pages, etc. and the iPhone.
Of course “apps” built specifically for the iPhone work best on the device, but you’ve got to invest time in building something specific to it.
“Blah blah blah, yes it doesn’t take much time to build an iPhone specific app because I’m the messiah of web dev”
LOL.
iPhone apps don’t make for the best start page widgets. You’ve got to make a trade off between something that might be very successful for one and only one platform (iPhone) or something that may be of middling quality but of greater reach.
Pinching is getting tiresome? I guess at some point you need to provide something useful, not just a new or pretty interface.
Widgets should be definition run anywhere. We need a set of standards and then we need to make sure we all enforce and follow those standards. If widgetbox is taking a step towards that I applaud them.
Matt
http://www.technologystory.com.....tant-enso/