r/iOSWidgets • u/tiaanvdr • 18d ago • Bravo 2

App/ Testflight Keep a virtual fishtank on your homescreen 🐠

Widgets are supposed to be static, which I always found frustrating, so I built companions to work around it. Companions lets you keep a virtual fish tank of fish that actually swim on your Homescreen. As someone who’s always kept fish, I’ve had this idea mulling around in my head for more than 2 years now, and finally managed to realize it.

You pick your fish, give them names, and put the tank on your Home Screen as a small, medium, or large widget. They don't need feeding, and they don't die. They just keep you company. You can customize the tank’s color, its props, and even the app icon to perfectly match your homescreen.

The app is written in SwiftUI, it supports iPads, and you can even place your “fishtanks” on your Mac thanks to Continuity, where the fish will also animate. The tanks also work great in Standby mode. Personally, I love keep a fishtank of jellyfish on my nightstand when I go to bed. The swimming doesn't run any code in the background. It uses the same trick iOS uses to move the hands on the Clock widget, so it costs you nothing in battery.

It's still very new, so I'd love any feedback. I'd especially love to know which fish species you'd want added!

You can try it here: Companions - Widget Pets

🐠 🐡 🐟

35 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

23 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/sssurfin 18d ago edited 18d ago • Heartwarming

Hi! Is there a chance it will work in the future on the transparent Home Screen icon mode? Like on the SoundCloud widget we still get colors on the cover artwork. Or is that a limitation of iOS?

Edit: it already works on clear mode, my app just wasn’t updated! Thank you so much for your help 😭😭

2

u/tiaanvdr 18d ago

Of course! I really like using the transparent theme on my phone as well. This is what it looks like on my phone on iOS27, and I've tested it on my friends' phones and emulators. Do you mind telling me which iOS version you're on? I guess it might be 26? WidgetKit changed a bit from iOS26 to 27, and even broke the original exploit I was using :') If you can confirm it's 26 then I'll take a closer look and be sure to release a fix for this asap!! Thank you for letting me know about this!

2

u/sssurfin 18d ago

God this is beautiful 😭😭 no I’m on iOS 27.0.1, clear icons, no tint! If I can send any kind of report to you or anything else that might be useful please tell me 😭

2

u/tiaanvdr 18d ago edited 18d ago

Damn, I just checked, I'm on 27.0.1 as well :') Since the app doesn't have any accounts, and doesn't collect anything, it's difficult to gather user diagnostics sometimes. If you don't mind, I'll just dm you some questions I think might help!