I’ve never been truly satisfied by any weather widget that I’ve found for my iPhone. The native Weather app’s widget is fine, and options such as CARROT Weather are funny, but neither lets me see what the weather is like in an instant, without having to interpret all the data and icons. That’s why I decided to create my own using Shortcuts.
None of the weather widgets I’ve used on my iPhone has ever really felt that useful. The reason is that most of them either provide too much information or too little. A widget with a single weather icon doesn’t really tell you that much, and a widget that tells you everything from the high and low temperatures to the precipitation percentages is too much to take in at a glance.
I’ve always wanted a weather widget that could give me a clear visual representation of the weather that I could see and understand immediately. I’ve tried to make my own a few times in the past, and with some of the new features in iOS 26, I’ve finally been able to make one that does what I want.
My custom widget displays an image that’s representative of the current weather conditions, so that I can see what the weather is like just by glancing at my home screen. The image is set to update three times a day, so that it changes as the weather conditions change. It’s a simple but effective way to instantly know what the local weather is like with a single glance.
The Get Current Weather Action Can Provide the Local Weather Conditions
I created my weather widget using the Shortcuts app. The “Get Current Weather” action has been around for some time and allows you to get the weather conditions at your current location. There are other weather actions that you can use, but they weren’t ideal for my purposes. “Get Weather Forecast” gives you hourly or daily information, but this was either too narrow or too broad for my needs. “Get Details of Weather Conditions” allows you to select the specific weather information that you want, but this was again too specific. “Get Current Weather” gives me the conditions and temperature, which are all I need for my widget.
To add the “Get Current Weather” action to your shortcut, open the Shortcuts app and create a new shortcut by clicking the “+” (plus) icon. Tap the “Search Actions” field and type “Get current weather.” Select the “Get Current Weather” action. Leave the location as “Current Location.”
The “Use Model” Action Lets You Generate an Image Generation Prompt
The “Use Model” action is a new Shortcuts action that is the key to my weather widget. It allows you to use a generative AI model to enact a specific prompt. You can use an on-device model, Apple’s private cloud-based model, or use ChatGPT to process the request, which happens off-device. For my widget, I’m using the ChatGPT option.
I asked the AI model to create an image generation prompt for an image that represents the current weather conditions. Later in the shortcut, I’ll pass this image generation prompt onto an image generation action to create the image for my widget.
Tap “Search Actions,” and type “Use model” into the search field. Under “Use Model,” select the “ChatGPT” option. You should see the “Weather Conditions” variable in the “Use ChatGPT” action. This indicates that the weather conditions from the first action have been passed to the “Use Model” action. Add a prompt that asks the model to generate an image description based on the weather conditions. For example, my prompt is “generate a short two-sentence image description of an image that can be passed to Image Playground that represents the key information from these weather conditions. Don’t give any text other than the description.”
You can make your images even more personalized by adding a “Get Current Location” action before the “Use Model” action, and adding the location to your prompt, asking the model to generate an image representative of your current location. The beauty of this method is that your images will change to match your location, no matter where you are.
The “Create Image” Action Turns Your Prompt Into an Image
Once you’ve used the “Use Model” action to create an image generation prompt, you need to pass that prompt to the “Create Image” action. This will use your prompt to generate the image for your widget. The “Create Image” action can use Apple’s own Image Playground image generation, or it can use ChatGPT to generate the image. Image Playground can’t create photorealistic images, and when I tested it, it would often fail to create an image at all from the generated prompt, so I used the ChatGPT option instead, which produces impressive results.
Tap “Search Actions,” type “Create Image,” and select the “Create Image” action. Tap “Description,” and select the “Response” variable that should appear above the keyboard. This is the image generation prompt generated by the previous action.
Tap the arrow, select “Response” in the “Style” section, and choose “Clear Variable” to delete it. Tap “Animation,” and select “ChatGPT”. Tap “Always” in the “Save to Playground” section and select “Never” unless you want to save a copy of all your weather images in the Playground app.
The “Save Image” Action Saves Your Weather Image to a Specific Album
The final stage for your shortcut is to save the generated image to your phone, so that it can be used in your widget. You need to create a specific album for your weather images, and unless you want them filling up your camera roll, you’ll also need to include some additional actions to delete older versions, which requires tweaking the Shortcuts settings. You can then save your image to the empty album.
Open the Photos app, tap “Collections,” select “Albums,” and click the “+” (plus) icon at the top of the screen. Select “New Album,” and give the album a name, such as “Weather Images.”
Go to Settings > Apps > Shortcuts and tap “Advanced.” Toggle “Allow Deleting Without Confirmation” on. This will allow you to delete old images without having to manually confirm the deletion.
In the Shortcuts app, tap “Search Actions,” type “Find photos,” and select the “Find Photos” action. Tap “Image,” and select “Clear Variable.” Tap “Add Filter,” select “Choose,” and select the album you created. Tap “Search Actions,” type “Delete photos,” and select the “Delete Photos” action.
Tap “Search Actions,” type “Save to photos,” and select the “Save to Photos” action. Tap “Photos” and select “Clear Variable.” Tap “Input” and select “Image.” Tap “Recents,” and select the album you created.
Tap the name of the shortcut at the top of the screen. Select “Rename,” and give the shortcut a memorable name.
Your shortcut is now finished and should look something like the images below:
Run it once by tapping the “play” icon at the bottom of the screen, which should generate your first weather image. It can take a few seconds to complete. Run it again by tapping the “play” icon once more, and this time, there will be an image in your album to delete, which will bring up a notification. Tap “Delete Always,” and you shouldn’t ever see this notification again.
The final step is to get the generated image to display in a widget on your iPhone. You can do this using the free Widgetsmith app, which lets you display the most recent photo from a specific album on your home screen.
Install the Widgetsmith app, open it, and tap the “+” (plus) icon. Under “Home Screen,” select the size of the widget you want to use. Choose “Most Recent in Album,” and in the “Album” tab, scroll through and select the album where your weather images are saved. Tap the blue check mark at the top of the screen to create your widget, give it a name, and save it.
To add the widget to your home screen, tap and hold in an empty region of the screen. Tap “Edit” at the top of the screen and choose “Add Widget.” Scroll down and select “Widgetsmith.” Select the widget size you want and tap “Add Widget.” Tap the widget name if it’s not showing the right option. Select your weather image widget and tap somewhere else on the screen. Your widget should now appear on your home screen.
You Can Use Automation to Update the Image Whenever You Want
For your weather widget to be useful, it needs to update as the weather changes. You can use Shortcuts automation to get the shortcut to run at specific times every day. This will generate a new image based on the current weather conditions, and the Widgetsmith widget will update to show the new image instead. I have mine set up to run at 7 am, midday, and 6.30 pm every day.
Tap the “Automation” tab at the bottom of the Shortcuts app. Select “Time of Day.” Enter the time that you want the shortcut to run. Select “Daily.” Choose “Run Immediately,” and ensure that “Notify When Run” is toggled off. Tap “Next,” and select your newly created shortcut. Repeat the process for any other times that you want the shortcut to run.
Your shortcut should now automatically run at the times of day you have selected, and your home screen widget should update to display the most recent image, allowing you to see the current weather conditions at a glance.
When I started working on this model, I had hoped that I’d be able to get it to run locally by using the on-device model to generate the system prompt and the local image generation in Image Playground to create the image. Unfortunately, neither model was capable of working consistently, so I was forced to use the ChatGPT models in both instances. Hopefully, as Apple’s models improve, there will come a point when all the processing can happen on-device, and I can have my own truly local weather widget.