Two posts back I wrote about adding speed dialing back to the “widget screen.” I knew that Apple probably had a formal name for it, but I’d never learned what it was. It turned out that I had a digital “manual” in my Apple Books app about iOS 13. Thumbing through the book I found the page (which you can see above).

I bring this up in part to correct my terminology, in part to point out that it may be going away in the future. How soon, with what version of iOS, I couldn’t say. But with the ability to place widgets on any screen on the iPhone, there is no longer any need for a specific “widget screen.” Which is going to be problematic for me as I noted earlier I don’t like the wasted screen real estate on Apple widgets, especially the speed dial widgets via Shortcuts.

I can do one of two things; either give up on the notion of speed dial widgets, or else go look for a third-party widget product that does a better job of gathering the speed dial widgets together (i.e. reduce screen real estate wastage). I’ll try the second option first and look for something in the app store that might do a better job. Otherwise, I’ll give up that feature. Like I had to give up the 3.5mm headphone jack with the iPhone 7…