Widget Platform MuseStorm Catches iPhone Fever
Summary
Rather, it’s adding iPhone support to its existing Widget Studio, which can be used for a variety of environments ranging from the Facebook platform to the Mac dashboard. It’s not terribly novice-friendly, since there’s very little in terms of visual aides, and any moderately advanced customization requires knowledge of CSS and access to a server that will host your image and style files (MuseStorm offloads most of the content within its widgets). I created a test widget for TechCrunch that exhibits the ever-so-stylish “Lazy Day” theme (one of 5 that come pre-packaged) but looks pretty crummy in a desktop browser. On the con side of things, the fade and slide transitions chug slowly and there’s no way to have a fixed header (every user interaction involves a complete page change). More serious developers can also use frameworks like Safire Consumer-oriented alternatives to MuseStorm include WidgetBox, Wix, and Sprout (although good luck getting the latter two working on the iPhone; they’re based entirely in Flash).