Manage Smart Stack Widget Suggestions in iOS 15

With the release of iOS 15, Apple refined the Home Screen experience by introducing intelligent Widget Suggestions within Smart Stacks. This article covers the specific updates introduced in iOS 15 for managing these suggestions, detailing how the feature works, how to enable or disable it, and how to control which apps are allowed to appear dynamically in your stacks.

Dedicated Widget Suggestions Toggle

The primary update in iOS 15 was the addition of the "Widget Suggestions" feature. Previously, Smart Stacks only rotated through widgets that a user manually added. In iOS 15, the operating system can automatically insert recommended widgets into a stack based on current activity, time of day, location, or typical app usage patterns.

Users can toggle this behavior on or off at any time:

  1. Touch and hold the Smart Stack on the Home Screen.
  2. Select Edit Stack from the quick actions menu.
  3. Tap the Widget Suggestions button in the lower-right corner to turn the feature on or off.

In-Line Actions for Suggested Widgets

When iOS 15 displays a suggested widget in a stack, it marks the item with a small indicator to distinguish it from permanently installed widgets. Apple added quick-action management options directly to these suggestions:

  • Add to Stack: If you find a suggested widget useful, you can tap the plus (+) icon on the widget to permanently keep it in your stack without entering the standard widget gallery.
  • Don't Suggest App: If you do not want to see recommendations from a specific app, you can long-press the suggested widget and select the option to stop suggesting widgets from that particular application.

Separate Controls for Smart Rotate and Suggestions

iOS 15 decoupled algorithmic suggestions from the rotation of existing widgets. Inside the Edit Stack menu, users have separate toggles for:

  • Smart Rotate: Determines whether iOS automatically cycles through widgets you have manually added based on relevance.
  • Widget Suggestions: Determines whether iOS can inject entirely new, unadded widgets into the stack.

This separation allows users to let their own chosen widgets rotate automatically without having unexpected apps injected into their Home Screen layout.