Share widgets have been gone from the iPhone and iPad since the first beta release of iOS 7. Some thought that they would return with the official release of iOS 7, but as we were all able to verify, that was never the case.
Of course, share widgets have nothing to do in Notification Center in the first place. After all, the goal of Notification Center is to notify you, not to provide ways to share to Twitter or Facebook. Still, that was a great loss for many users.
Jailbreakers rejoice, because today, you can easily bring back those share widgets thanks to a new jailbreak tweak called Share Widget for iOS 7…
Developed by Merlin Mao, Share Widget for iOS 7 does exactly what its name suggests: it brings share widgets for Twitter, Facebook, Weibo, and Tencent in the Today tab of Notification Center.
After installing Share Widget for iOS 7 from Cydia, you will have to go to Settings > Notification Center > and turn Share Widget On, as it is set to Off by default. Although you don’t have to do that, I also moved the Share Widget right below Next Destination. This way, my share widgets appear towards the top of my Today tab in Notification Center.
You will also have to go to Settings > Share Widget in order to select what services you want to use. In the screenshot above, you can see that I am using Twitter and Facebook only. You can also use the widgets for Weibo and Tencent, two services that are mainly used in China.
The Share Widget settings allow you to use a compact layout as well, although I was not able to get this layout to work, even after performing a respring and reboot.
In order to use the widgets, you will have to pull Notification Center down, then tap on one of the widgets. This will bring up the stock share sheet for the selected widget. In the screenshot above, you can see the Twitter sheet in action. It’s worth noting that this tweak also works from the Lock screen. Again, pull Notification Center down on your Lock screen and tap on the widget you want to use.
The tweak works fairly well, although I have encountered a few glitches. First, I was not able to get the compact layout to work. I performed a respring and a reboot unsuccessfully. After rebooting though, I noticed that my Today tab in Notification Center was messed up, as it wouldn’t show Today Summary. A reboot fixed it, but still, it was not a pleasant experience.
Edit: I am being told that compact layout only works when all services are enabled. I’m thinking that it would then be a good thing to make a note of it in the settings, or completely hide the compact layout toggle if you haven’t selected all services.
I also feel like the widget icons have not been optimized for a Retina display. They don’t look bad, but they certainly could look a little crispier.
Share Widget for iOS 7 is a free tweak available in the BigBoss repo. It’s definitely worth a look at. If the developer manages to fix the couple bugs I encountered, and hopefully improve the icons, this tweak will likely stay in my Notification Center (at least until someone brings these widgets to Control Center).
Give it a try and let us know what you think.
