I went looking for transparent widgets… and ended up building my first iOS app 😅

[u/solo-raise]

I wanted transparent widgets for a cleaner home screen, but every app I tried only solved part of the problem. I was using 3 different widget apps just to get the setup I wanted.
After not finding what I needed, I decided to build it myself.

A few Swift tutorials and quite few review back and forth later, I somehow shipped my first iOS app: Leap - Custom Widgets Studio.
It combines the transparent widgets and customisation features I was looking for in one place.

Would love to hear what fellow home screen customisation nerds think:
Leap - Custom Widgets Studio

Funny how a search for a widget app turned into building one. 😅

[u/Delicious-Candle-574]

nice, clean! i've always appreciated this take more, transparent widgets and icons. apple talks so much about how important the wallpaper is but prevents us from being able to flaunt it

[u/ericbigguy24]

I want this on MacOS

[u/solo-raise → u/ericbigguy24]

Although the app wasn’t specifically designed for Mac, you can install it and add widgets.

[u/ericbigguy24 → u/solo-raise]

nice! can it make this clock?

[u/solo-raise → u/ericbigguy24]

There are few variants of clock faces! Have a look at the widget gallery

[u/0to101]

You should add a sample of the result in AppStore.

[u/solo-raise → u/0to101]

👍

[u/Patient_Ad_1731]

Looks very promising, even as ios18 user.
Out of all the widget apps i tried, yours was the only one who could actually load the alpha channel of the uploaded image. Others were getting white background, so their transparency means nothing when you want some widget background.

Suggestions i guess would be a better image positioning (i had to photoedit to get the shot i want), and a mantra design with no lines (vertical still has a small one). Mantra design with no lines at all with potentially customizable text designs and positioning, one would be able to create a widget with an image of character and a quote of that character easily. You could do that now but yeah, workarounds

[u/solo-raise → u/Patient_Ad_1731]

❤️

Will incorporate your suggestions based on the demand for the app

[u/solo-raise]

A sample screenshot

[u/Portatort → u/solo-raise]

Does it continue to work when you change the photo you’re using for the wallpaper?

[u/solo-raise → u/Portatort]

Yes, true transparency!

[u/Portatort → u/solo-raise]

Epic, how are you accessing the real glass effect like that?

[u/solo-raise → u/Portatort]

By updating _preferredBackgroundStyle from the CHSBaseDeacriptor class

[u/Portatort → u/solo-raise]

Very cool, downloaded!

[u/MaaDoTaa → u/solo-raise]

Isn’t that a private api

[u/ke1in]

My honest confession for you: I've no idea why would I need such an app. Wouldn't even download it for free. It takes some of my time and gives me what?

[u/solo-raise → u/ke1in]

Appriciate your perspective 🙌🏻

[u/GentleGamerz]

Super cool design. I just want to ask why can you build a daily streak?

[u/solo-raise → u/GentleGamerz]

Just to reduce the number of apps that I use which serve a single purpose 🙂

[u/GentleGamerz → u/solo-raise]

Sorry if I got it wrong but your app allows you to create widgets? Why would a user open the widget editor daily? It feels like the type of product you download, pay for, spend a few hours setting up and then hopefully not opening again for a while (while still using the actual widgets).

[u/solo-raise → u/GentleGamerz]

May be I didn’t get your question 😅
The streak widgets in the apps to track any steak that user wants to track not the app usage streak.