Although Apple hasn’t said anything about support of third-party widgets in the iOS 5 notification center, our source reports that a developer has uncovered a way to develop a simple widget for Notification Center, which he uses as his proof of concept.
His widget shows that, even if Apple does not supply a public API for third-party widgets in the SDK, it is still technically possible to create a widget for Notification Center. His example is a simple “hello, world” type app, which you can see in the screenshot above.
The possibility of custom widgets on iOS 5 intrigues me greatly – and according to known jailbreak developer Chronic, it’s really not difficult – just a matter of creating a custom interface and compiling it in the right way. Below is a shot of the current Notification Center in iOS 5 beta, and how it portrays information.
I hope that Apple opens up Notification Center to third-party widgets – widgets are immensely useful (they’d be particularly interesting on an iPad), and I don’t want to be stuck with whatever small handful of things Apple happens to come up with.
Your thoughts? Sound off in the comments!