iTunes 12.1 Update Comes With New Widget

With OS X Yosemite came widgets. These widgets are accessible through Notification Center in OS X Yosemite. Today, iTunes now comes with a widget that allows you to have music controls in Notification Center. This is useful if you don't want to have to worry about where the MiniPlayer window is at or in which desktop. That's a huge step up for me. Anyways, you can get this update by going to the Mac App Store > Updates > and find the OS X update. A restart is required.

Image Credit: MacRumors

Vidgets

Vidgets is truly iOS 8's new best friend. It brings the joy of quick widgets to Notification Center for the low price of free. You can add several widgets to Notification Center such as CPU, battery, clock, weather, speedometer, and more. Vidgets is available from the Apple App Store for free (contains an in-app purchase) [Direct Link].

Keep Track Of Your Data Using DataMan's Widget

The app DataMan always made it easy to manage your cellular data usage. Now it's even easier! With the latest update, you can now view your data usage from Notification Center. Be sure to buy the latest version of DataMan [Direct Link] today!

DataMan's Notification Center Widget

Philips Creates Prototype Hue Widget for iOS 8

Philips tweeted a snapshot of their new iOS 8 widget for their popular lighting product, Hue. The widget shows several preset options for the Hue to change to, along with a way to instantly turn all lights off.

This is a concept prototype we produced, to show providing hue access from the notification centre pic.twitter.com/kvqB2arCfH
— Philips Hue Dev (@philipshuedev) June 5, 2014

iOS 8 will finally support widgets when it comes out using a concept called "extensions." The widgets will be displayed using the "Today" view in Notification Center.

Many smart home products often require a companion app that must be opened in order to control an appliance, such as a light. Using notification center would make the process much quicker.

The Philips Hue is available for $199.99 (Starter Pack) and iOS 8 will be available in the fall for free.