Currently Android has a Favorites Shortcut which can be placed on the Home Screen. iOS has a preference to open to Favorites Screen. As for widgets, they only allow limited updates, the amount of updates is determined by OS, but If I remember correctly it was about 50 per day (2 per hour).  So while widgets may work well for some things that don't change frequently, like weather forecasts, it will likely lead to support issues for most other devices as Status will be out of sync for some us