Bible verse on your lock screen: what actually works

Platform behaviour checked against official Android and Apple documentation on 19 September 2026. Where a claim comes from a second-hand source, this page says so.

The answer in one line

On iPhone (iOS 16 or later) you can put a verse widget on the lock screen, and it takes about thirty seconds. On most Android phones you cannot — not because the app is missing a feature, but because Android has left lock-screen widgets optional for device makers since 2014, and almost none of them enable it.

By device

Device	Third-party widget on the lock screen?	What to do instead
iPhone (iOS 16+)	Yes	See the steps below
Pixel Tablet	Yes — documented by Google	Long-press the lock screen → Customize
Pixel phone on Android 16 QPR2+	Beta, and you have to switch it on yourself	`Settings → Display & Touch → Lock screen → Widgets on lock screen` (reported by Android Authority, 2 Dec 2025; Google's own phone help page does not document it — check your own device)
Every other Android phone	No	The two options further down — both work everywhere

Why Android phones mostly can't

This is not a bug and not a limitation of any one app. It is a decision Google made in 2014 and has never reversed at the compatibility level:

Android 4.2 (2012) introduced lock-screen widgets. Google's own release page said users "can place app widgets directly on their lock screens".
Android 5.0 (2014) made them optional. In the Android Compatibility Definition, the requirement changed from MUST support application widgets on the lock screen to MAY. Android has never used the word "removed" — it made the feature optional, and in practice the phone makers stopped shipping it.
2024: lock-screen widgets came back — on the Pixel Tablet. Google's help pages cover the tablet, not the phone.
Android 16 QPR1 onward: Google says lock-screen widgets are in AOSP "for tablets and mobile". But the compatibility requirement is still MAY as of the Android 17 CDD. Optional means exactly that: a phone can ship without it, and nearly all of them do.

So when an app's store page promises "lock-screen widget", on Android that is a promise the app cannot keep for most of its users. It is worth reading such claims sceptically.

Whose fault is it — the app's or the phone's?

The phone's. This is the part most explanations get wrong, and it is worth two minutes because it decides whether you should go looking for a setting in the app.

Since Android 16 QPR1, Google's position is that apps do not have to do anything to be eligible. Google's own FAQ says it plainly: "All widgets are compatible with the lock screen widget experience. To prioritize user choice and customization, we've made all widgets available." There is no opt-in switch an app forgot to flip.

What an app can do is the opposite — it can opt out. Android 16 adds a widget category that lets a developer say "never show this on the keyguard". That is the only lever the app side has, and it points the other way. So if one app shows verses on your lock screen and another does not, the difference is your device and your launcher, not the second app's code.

Two consequences that surprise people:

The trigger is chosen by the phone maker. Google's FAQ notes that manufacturers can decide what makes the lock-screen widget experience appear — charging or docking, for instance. The same phone may offer it only when it is plugged in.
An app cannot ask your phone whether it supports them. Android exposes no "does this device support lock-screen widgets" query. An app finds out only after one of its widgets has been placed somewhere, by checking which surface it landed on.

Which is why "lock-screen widget" in a store listing is neither automatically a lie nor automatically true: on Android it is a claim about some devices, and a careful listing says so.

How to check your own Android phone

Open Settings and search for lock screen.
Look for a Widgets entry under the lock-screen settings. If there is none, your device does not offer it — no app can change that.
If there is one, enable it, then long-press your lock screen and choose Customize. Available widgets appear there.
On Pixel phones the path is reported as Display & Touch → Lock screen → Widgets on lock screen, and the feature has been in beta. Treat that as a starting point, not a guarantee, for your model.

On iPhone (iOS 16 or later)

Long-press the lock screen until it jiggles.
Tap Customize, then Lock Screen.
Tap the widget area under the clock, then choose the app's widget from the list.
Tap Done.

The flow above is the standard one; Apple documents it at support.apple.com/118610. One limitation worth knowing: while the phone is locked, buttons and toggles inside a widget do nothing until you authenticate — so a lock-screen verse is for reading, not for interaction.

What works on every Android phone

Two things, and neither of them is a lock-screen widget:

1. A home-screen widget

This is fully supported on every Android version and every launcher. Long-press an empty area of the home screen → Widgets → find the app → drag it out. If you want the verse visible the moment you pick the phone up, put the widget on the top row of your first home screen: it is the closest thing to a lock-screen verse that Android reliably offers.

2. A daily notification

A notification does appear on the lock screen, and it is the only way to get a verse onto a locked Android phone across every device. Two caveats, both from Android's own documentation:

On Android 13 and later, an app needs the notification permission, which you can refuse. If you refuse it, the app's notifications simply do not appear.
You can turn any app's notifications off at any time, in Settings, or silence them per channel. An app cannot override that — and one that claims it can is not telling you the truth.

One thing to be careful about

A store listing that promises a lock-screen widget is making a claim about some Android devices, not all of them — because whether the feature exists at all is up to the phone maker, and the app side cannot force it. The precise phrasing is "home-screen widget, and on supported devices also the lock screen". We would rather write that here than have you install something and hunt for a setting your phone was never shipped with.

Disclosure: we make AI Verse Widget, a Bible widget app for Android. Our app puts the verse on your home screen — that works on every Android phone. A daily notification is designed but not shipped yet; when it is, it will appear on your lock screen like any other notification, subject to the permission rules above. We are not going to claim a lock-screen widget, because on most Android phones we could not deliver one.