Pinterest’s new widget brings photos from favorite boards to your iOS 14 homescreen

As iPhone owners began customizing their iOS 14 homescreens with new widgets and custom icons, Pinterest iOS downloads and searches surged as the app became a top source for design ideas and inspiration. Today, Pinterest is more directly joining the homescreen customization trend with its own iOS 14 widget of its own.

Last month, Pinterest broke its daily download record when it saw over 600,000+ downloads in a single day. Though third-party estimates disagreed on which day the new record was achieved, multiple firms saw an outsized number of new users downloading the Pinterest mobile app. The demand was directly tied to the #ios14homescreen redesign trend that was also being shared across social media as users showed off how they were using iOS 14's new widgets, along with matching wallpapers and custom icons for app shortcuts to give their homescreen a new aesthetic."

During this time, Pinterest says it saw searches for ideas like indie ios 14 homescreen" spike by 15x in the week following the iOS 14 launch compared with the week prior, while searches for iPhone aesthetic" were up by 19x.

The trend also pushed custom widget makers - like Widgetsmith, Color Widgets, and Photo Widget - up to the top of the App Store charts, as they allowed users to add photos and other colorful widgets to their homescreen.

Similarly, the new Pinterest widget launching today could make for a good alternative to a static photo widget.

Instead of choosing a photo or album of photos saved to your Camera Roll to serve as the source for your iOS 14 homescreen photos as with other photo widgets, the new Pinterest widget allows you to select a Pinterest board as your photo source. The board can either be one of your own or one that you follow.

For example, you could add a widget that features your favorite motivational quotes or one that serves of photos of travel inspiration or style ideas. You could also create seasonal boards, like those for Halloween or fall or Christmas or winter, to make it easier to swap between different homescreen aesthetics" with the changing seasons.

Pinterest says the new widget will update the photo it features on an hourly on daily basis, depending on your preferences. The widget can also be set either as a small photo or large one, but the company notes there's no medium option as it's not optimal for Pin length.

The widget is also interactive. When you tap the Pinterest widget, you'll be launched directly to that Pin in the app.

As you find new photos that fit your homescreen aesthetic, you can add them to your board to keep a fresh set of photos appearing on your homescreen.

The updated app with the widget is rolling out to iOS users worldwide starting today, Pinterest says.