Widget Location from Favorites List
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Is there a way on iOS to add a widget to the home screen, and have the location set to a "Favorite" and show the label of the Favorite? I do not want my actual city location showing on the widget for privacy/security/safety reasons. But everything I try, it ends up showing the city name on the widget. And when I try to set a "Custom Location" for the widget in the widget settings, none of the favorites show up there. This seems so basic, every other app has a Favorites list but I can't get it to show here.
For example, I can open Windy, drag my finger to a location, set it as a Favorite. Name it "Home", and then close Windy, add a widget to my homescreen that pulls location data for Home. This would be the ideal use-case. But there's no such feature that I am seeing.
This appears to not work, and I swear this used to work a couple years ago. I think it broke, and I decided to delete Windy, cancel premium, and move on, but it looks like this is still not fixed.
I've tried just about everything, deleting, reinstalling, etc. Still no dice.
If anyone has direct steps on how to do this that would be great, otherwise back to the trash this app goes, pull an Apple refund for Premium, and move on to another app. As much as I want to love it, this is super important for me (and I'm sure other people). I thought for SURE they just paywalled this feature or something but nope... even premium doesn't appear to have it. (This should be a free feature BTW).
AND yes, even with "Startup Location" being set to Home, it still pulls via IP address. (Location services are off, but having them on makes no difference to this issue).
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I idefix37 marked this topic as a regular topic on
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@slimothy Hi, as you mentioned, you can choose any location you need by the field location, so we decided to not implement favorites into this.
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@Ondřej-Šutera Right, why? It used to be a feature so it could show a custom label, like "Home" or "Work" rather than doxxing their location. If you re-implemented the Favorites feature, we could have better privacy especially when screen-mirroring and during public-facing videos like YouTube.
It does not make any sense to show the full street address of a location from the picker, it should either be able to be hidden, or choose from Favorites with the Favorites label shown rather than full street address. Seems like an enormous oversight, perhaps the developers of this app do not use Widgets on iOS?
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@slimothy I discussed this with colleagues and we never had this option, you mentioned. We consider it as the best solution to offer all possibilities to choose their location.
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@Ondřej-Šutera Strange, maybe it was a glitch, but mine used to show a Favorite location label rather than a street address.
I agree with you, let's give the best solution to offer all possibilities by adding Favorites to the list. So people can type in a street address, or a Favorite name. That way they have ALL possibilities to choose their location.
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@slimothy
You do not need to specify a complete and precise address. Remember that the model resolution is 9 kilometers for the ECMWF model. It wouldn't change anything if you pointed a few km away. -
@slimothy said in Widget Location from Favorites List:
@Ondřej-Šutera Strange, maybe it was a glitch, but mine used to show a Favorite location label rather than a street address.
I agree with you, let's give the best solution to offer all possibilities by adding Favorites to the list. So people can type in a street address, or a Favorite name. That way they have ALL possibilities to choose their location.
It is technically unfeasible because iOS generates settings based on widget intent declarations, and we lack access to the search field due to system limitations.
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@SimonUrbanek The Tempest Weather application allows you to name your location, and then select it as the location for a widget, so it's not technically unfeasible. Mine is named "Home". Perhaps Windy is programmed in a way that makes it more difficult, but that's not an end-user's problem.
There is technically a way to choose from a favorite within an app, but it appears this is not the case for Windy anymore which is fine, I didn't develop the app. Definitely something you should consider though. Not everyone wants their location/city on public display on their iPhone home-screen. Many people have public lives that involve presentations/YouTube/Streaming where this could dox them and their families.
Allowing a tag/label for a location would fix this and it's definitely not technically unfeasible. There could even be a separate toggle within the Widget to allow users to choose from Saved Favorites within the Windy App rather than an exact spot on a map. OR just allow them to rename it once they choose a spot on the map, visually, on the widget. Source: Other apps do it.
I appreciate you looking into it.
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I have reviewed the app you mentioned, but its widget only offers favorite spots, not favorites and search any locations combined (looks to me, that is not a search, but filter).
Unfortunately, the Apple API does not permit this, which is disappointing because having favorites listed first would be beneficial.
I recommend exploring iOS focus mode. You can create separate focus modes for private and public use, organizing different apps and widgets on your home screen to enhance privacy (https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/iphone/iphd6288a67f/ios).
Regrettably, I am unable to provide further assistance at the moment.
