A quote widget for iPhone that shows your own quotes
How iPhone widgets work, how to add the Kandou widget, how to make it change daily or at custom times, and how Pro styles the medium widget with your photo and font.
The short answer. Kandou puts a quote widget on your iPhone Home Screen that shows your quotes, not a feed. Add the small widget for free, set a rotation (daily, every other day, weekly, or up to four custom times a day), and it changes on that schedule. Kandou Pro unlocks the medium widget, which shows the author and category and can be styled with your own photo, font, size, and text color. Kandou requires iOS 18 or later, and it has no Lock Screen widget; for the Lock Screen, use the wallpaper export.
Most quote widgets show someone else’s quotes
Search the App Store for a quote widget and you get feeds: a new generic motivational line every hour, from a database of thousands, usually with a subscription attached. That is fine if you want a stream of strangers’ words. It is the wrong tool if the point of a quote is that it is yours: the line from the book that changed something, the thing a friend said, the sentence you wrote.
A widget is the best surface on an iPhone for a saved quote, because you look at the Home Screen dozens of times a day without deciding to. The trick is to fill it with a collection you chose and to change it slowly enough that each line has time to land.
How Kandou’s widgets work
Kandou has two Home Screen widgets:
- Small (free): the quote text only, on a background in the quote’s category color. Clean and readable at a glance.
- Medium (Pro): the quote with its author and a category badge, in the app’s serif typography. Pro also unlocks the Widget Appearance editor, where you set a photo background, choose a font and size, and pick the text color.
Both follow the widget rotation you set in Settings, which is separate from the Home tab rotation, so the widget can change daily while the app shows a different pace. Widgets are updated by iOS on its own schedule, so a change can land a few minutes after the time you chose.
Adding the widget
In Kandou
- Save at least one quote (or keep the free Starter collection, which is already there). The widget needs content to show.
- Set the widget rotation: open Settings, choose Widget, and pick Standard (Daily, Every Other Day, or Weekly at a chosen time) or Personalized (up to four times a day). Off shows the same quote until you change it.
- Add the widget: press and hold an empty area of the Home Screen, tap the plus button in the corner, search for Kandou, choose the small widget (or the medium one with Pro), and tap Add Widget.
- Style the medium widget (Pro): open Settings, choose Widget Appearance, add a photo from your library, pick the font and size, and set the text color. The widget updates with the next refresh.
- Tap the widget to open the app on that quote.
Making the widget worth looking at
- One line a day is the right speed. Hourly widgets become wallpaper you stop seeing. Daily, at a time you actually look at your phone (morning coffee, the commute), gives each line a chance.
- Keep the widget on the first Home Screen page. Widgets on page three are widgets you never see.
- Filter by mood with categories. The Home tab can be filtered to one category; the widget shows the whole rotation, so keep the collection to lines you would want to see on any day.
- Use a photo background sparingly (Pro). A calm photo behind a serif line looks like a print; a busy one makes the quote unreadable. The editor shows a live preview.
Lock Screen: what Kandou does instead of a widget
iOS Lock Screen widgets are small rectangles, about half the width of the screen, which is too little room for a sentence. Kandou deliberately does not ship one. Instead, any quote can be exported as a full-screen wallpaper, saved to Photos, and set as the Lock Screen, for free. The Lock Screen guide walks through it.
Frequently asked questions
Does Kandou have a Home Screen widget?
Yes. A small widget is free and shows your current quote; a medium widget with the author and category comes with Kandou Pro, along with a Widget Appearance editor for a photo background, font, size, and text color.
Can the widget show my own quotes instead of random ones?
Yes. The widget shows the quotes in your Kandou collection, your own and any library collections you added, on the rotation you set. There is no feed of generic quotes.
How often does the quote widget change?
As often as you choose in Settings: daily, every other day, weekly, or at up to four custom times a day. iOS refreshes widgets on its own schedule, so a change may appear a few minutes after the set time.
Why is my Kandou widget not updating?
Open the app once (that triggers a refresh), make sure you have at least one saved quote, check that the widget rotation is not set to Off, and if needed remove and re-add the widget. iOS controls the exact refresh timing.
Does Kandou have a Lock Screen widget?
No. Lock Screen widgets are too small for a quote, so Kandou exports quotes as full-screen wallpapers instead, which you set as your Lock Screen from Photos.