Apple this week expanded its sports widget to macOS, replicating the iPhone and iPad experience with live scores and schedules directly on the desktop. For Windows 11 users, it’s a sharp reminder that Microsoft’s own Widgets Board remains a half-baked feature—thin on useful widgets, burdened by a persistent news feed, and largely ignored by developers.

macOS Scores a Seamless Sports Widget

The new macOS widget mirrors the iOS and iPadOS versions, syncing favorite teams and real-time updates via iCloud. It sits on the desktop alongside other first- and third-party widgets, part of an ecosystem that Apple has steadily nurtured since macOS Sonoma. The move isn’t groundbreaking on its own—sports widgets have existed—but it reinforces Apple’s consistency: widgets are visible, interactive, and deeply integrated across devices. That continuity is the real taunt for Windows users who haven’t seen comparable momentum.

Windows 11’s Widgets Board: A News Feed with Widgets on the Side

On Windows 11, the Widgets Board launched in 2022 as an evolution of the “News and interests” feed from Windows 10. From day one, Microsoft Start / MSN news dominated the panel. Widgets—weather, calendar, to-do, sports, and a few others—were tacked on, often buried below auto-playing videos and sensational headlines.

It took until the end of 2023 for Microsoft to start testing an option to disable the news feed. By early 2024, many users on stable builds could finally see a widgets-only layout by toggling off Microsoft Start. Yet even when that setting is enabled, the board still opens to a feed tab by default in many configurations, and the newest Insider builds are testing an AI-curated Copilot Discover feed that pushes widgets into a secondary tab. The feature that should be the star is literally being sidelined.

A Threadbare Widget Catalog

The practical consequence is a library that’s both tiny and underwhelming. As of early 2025, the Microsoft Store lists roughly 50 widgets, and that number fluctuates as Microsoft adds or removes items like Calendar, To Do, or Photos during reworks. Compare that to the thousands of iOS widgets or hundreds on macOS, and the gap is glaring.

Quality doesn’t compensate for quantity. The Spotify widget, for instance, displays trending playlists but offers no playback controls. Many widgets are little more than glorified shortcuts or static information cards. A handful—like a package tracker or GPU monitor—are genuinely useful, but they’re outliers. For every task a macOS widget can handle with a glance or a tap, the Windows equivalent either doesn’t exist or feels like a proof-of-concept.

What It Means for You

For home users, the Widgets Board is often an accidental detour: you click an icon looking for quick info and instead get a scroll of clickbait. The lack of essential, interactive widgets means you’ll still need to open full apps for calendars, messaging, or music control—exactly the friction widgets are meant to eliminate.

Power users and IT admins have even less reason to engage. The Widgets Board has no support for desktop pinning, no live activity overlay, and no meaningful enterprise management. Disabling it via Group Policy is straightforward, but that just removes a feature that never delivered value. Compared with macOS, where widgets can live on the desktop and pull real-time data from Continuity-enabled apps, Windows 11’s offering feels like abandoned real estate.

How We Got Here: A Timeline of Neglect

The roots go back to Windows Vista’s ill-fated gadgets, which were scrapped over security concerns. Microsoft became cautious, and when widgets returned, they came wrapped in a web-based shell. The Widgets Board in Windows 11 was built on Adaptive Cards and web technologies, but the strategic bet was on content, not utility.

  • June 2021: Windows 11 announced with Widgets Board, powered by Microsoft Start feed.
  • October 2022: Windows 11 22H2 shipped with Widgets Board; news feed could not be turned off.
  • May 2023: Microsoft announced at Build that it would test a widgets-only mode.
  • Late 2023: Insider builds received the toggle to hide the news feed.
  • Early 2024: Stable channel users began seeing the “Show or hide feeds” setting.
  • 2025: Insider builds test a Copilot Discover AI feed with widgets in a separate tab.

Throughout that timeline, the developer story has been thin. Microsoft supports widgets via Adaptive Cards, PWAs, and Win32 apps, but the documentation is sparse, and the incentive is unclear. Apple, by contrast, offers a unified widget framework across iOS, iPadOS, and macOS with rich APIs and strong discoverability. The result: developers flock to where the users and tooling are.

What to Do Now

You don’t have to wait for Microsoft to fix its Widgets Board. Several immediate steps can reclaim your desktop’s utility.

Turn Off the News Feed

Open the Widgets Board (Win+W or click the taskbar icon), select the gear icon, and choose Show or hide feeds. Disable Microsoft Start. This leaves a cleaner panel with only your pinned widgets. The setting is widely available on current Windows 11 builds.

Explore Third-Party Widget Tools

Rainmeter remains the go-to for custom desktop gadgets—clock, system monitors, weather, and more. For sports fans, dedicated apps like CBS Sports or ESPN often have their own pop-out tickers. These require a bit of setup but deliver the at-a-glance experience that Microsoft’s board lacks.

Demand Better from Developers

If you use Spotify, Xbox, or Microsoft 365 apps, submit feedback asking for richer widgets. Developer interest follows clear user signals. When app vendors see demand for Windows widgets, they’re more likely to invest in building them.

IT Admins: Disable the Board If It Adds No Value

If your users aren’t using Widgets, turn it off through Group Policy (Computer Configuration → Administrative Templates → Windows Components → Widgets) to reduce clutter and potential distraction.

Outlook: Microsoft’s Widgets at a Crossroads

The Copilot Discover experiment is telling. By injecting AI-curated stories into the Widgets Board and siloing widgets into a separate tab, Microsoft seems more interested in serving content than in building a productivity surface. That bet might increase engagement with news, but it risks permanently alienating users who wanted the feature to live up to its name.

There’s still time to pivot. If Microsoft ships the widgets-only mode as the default, opens richer APIs for third-party developers, and promotes widget discovery in the Store, the narrative could change. But with macOS and iPadOS demonstrating how useful widgets can be, the clock is ticking.