Tutorial: How to build iOS 14 Widgets using WidgetKit, with CoreData and creating links back to your app.

When Apple announced WidgetKit a few months ago, I was incredibly excited because it’s exactly what I wanted for my language app.

When to use an iOS widget

Widgets are best for providing periodicals or updated content to your users prominently, and can offer a way to re-engage users who forgot about your app.

In 2014, I built an app designed to help me learn Kanji — Japanese characters.

The App I’m updating is called Kanji Essentials — here’s a preview on the App Store, so you can see the final product and screenshots of what we’re making.

The user will click on the widget in the first screenshot and the app will open skipping the main view and jumping directly to the detailed view.

The purpose is really straight forward: show a list of characters grouped into lessons, allow the student to practice stroke order (essentially drawing the character so it looks balanced), display examples and pronunciations.

Sometimes I’m lazy, and I don’t even open my own app more than once a month. I wanted to change that without annoying the user with Notifications.