Apple is cracking down on Notification Center widgets in iOS once again, this time telling Neato that its note taking widget is unacceptable and will need to be removed due to the fact that it includes a keyboard.
I don’t understand Apple’s overall stance on this issue. I agree that some companies will, given the opportunity, take it too far and clutter the Notification Widget. However, there are times when an expanded widget makes sense.
I’d personally love a widget for taking a quick note in the notification center – As a teacher and a music teacher, it makes life easy for students who forget their instrument or behavior notifications. Every second counts in the classroom, and even something as quick as Vesper still isn’t fast enough.
I wonder if a part of this is that the keyboard might be made available from notification centre accessed via the Lock Screen, which could pose some (as yet unknown) security vulnerability?
I downloaded Neato after reading this post. While I’m not sure how much I’ll use it, personally, I see the value. I wonder about a voice memo widget, though. I might use that more than a text memo.
Why would you use neato when you can just use Siri? It’s so much easier. I agree with the comment that it probably has something to do with the lock screen.
Apple is (overly) worried about precedent. They always go too far before relaxing the rules. Consider:
There was a time when iOS podcast downloader apps were actually banned, because they “duplicated functionality” of the iPod/Music app!
Camera apps that allowed use of the volume buttons to take photos had to remove that feature, until Apple added it to the built-in Camera app & 3rd parties could then start doing it again
PCalc was going to be removed from the App Store because “Notification Center widgets were not allowed to perform calculations,” but then Apple changed its mind
Launcher was not that lucky.