A2Z Groups vs Phone Widget
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
A2Z Groups
Manage your contacts and send messages or emails to groups efficiently. Organize contacts, create custom groups, and send personalized mass communications. Features include backups, birthday reminders, and contact sharing.
- Create and manage contact groups
- Send mass texts and group emails
- Backup and restore contacts
- Birthday and anniversary notifications
- Share and export contacts
- Clone contacts and groups
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A2Z is the complete contact manager! With A2Z, you can easily create, edit, and delete contacts & groups. Send mass texts and group emails. View recently created contacts. Share or print your contacts. Create backups. Get birthday notifications. And so much more: CONTACTS: • View all of your contacts organized by account or group • Easily find a contact with A2Z's powerful search tool • Select multiple contacts and perform a number of actions including text, email, share, and delete • Quickly perform a number of functions with one touch directly from the contact card GROUPS: • Create groups of contacts from any account including iCloud, Google, Exchange or Outlook • Filter contacts by one or more groups at the same time • Add & remove contacts from a particular group • Add & remove groups from a particular contact FAVORITES: • Create a list of favorites allowing you to quickly call/message/email those contacts GROUP EMAILS & MESSAGES: • Send messages to groups via iMessage, SMS, & WhatsApp • Send emails to groups via Mail App or Gmail App • Attach photos & documents, including from Dropbox • Assign the to/cc/bcc email field to each contact individually • Give your message a personal touch - Automatically refer to each contact by name COMPANIES, BIRTHDAYS, ANNIVERSARIES, MOST VIEWED, RECENTLY CREATED/MODIFIED/DELETED: • Sort your contacts by company name • View upcoming birthdays & anniversaries • View your most frequently viewed contacts • View recently created & modified contacts • View & restore your recently deleted contacts SHARE CONTACTS: • Share one or more contacts via text message, email, or various other services • Export contacts in the CSV or vCard format DELETE CONTACTS & GROUPS: • Quickly delete contacts & groups BACKUP: • Create a backup of any contact account • Restore your backup to any contact account CLONE CONTACTS & GROUPS: • Clone a contact from the contact card screen including all contact fields & groups • Clone a group so you don't have to add all of the group members manually START SCREEN: • Specify whether the app should load the contacts, groups, or favorites screen at startup SHORTCUTS: • Press & hold a contact or group to conveniently perform a number of common functions SYNC CONTACTS WITH GOOGLE: • Fully compatible with the "Contacts Sync" app WORKS WELL WITH OTHER CONTACT APPS: • Any contact changes you make with this app will be reflected in any other contact app that queries the iPhone address book (including the standard Contacts & Phone app) SUBSCRIPTIONS: • A2Z Contacts offers a "Premium" subscription which unlocks all of the premium features in the app, including unrestricted group emails and texts, unrestricted sharing of contacts, and access to future premium features. • The "Premium" subscription is priced at $0.99 USD and the subscription length is 1 year • Payment will be charged to iTunes Account at confirmation of purchase • Subscription automatically renews unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24-hours before the end of the current period • Account will be charged for renewal within 24-hours prior to the end of the current period, at a cost of $0.99 USD • Subscriptions may be managed by the user and auto-renewal may be turned off by going to the user's Account Settings after purchase • Any unused portion of a free trial period, if offered, will be forfeited when the user purchases a subscription to that publication, where applicable • Terms of use: https://playaapps.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360003030954 • Privacy Policy: https://playaapps.zendesk.com/hc/articles/229824667
Phone Widget
Quickly call and message contacts directly from your home screen with a single tap. Customize your widgets with various themes and sizes to suit your needs. Access your most frequent contacts without searching through your phone's address book.
- One-Tap™ calling and messaging
- Home screen contact access
- Multiple widget sizes
- Customizable themes
- Support for iMessage, WhatsApp, Telegram
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With Phone Widget, calling your loved ones has never been easier and faster! Call and message your friends in only one tap! Thanks to our new One-Tap™ technology, tapping our widget is enough to start a call (Requires the Shortcuts app) or open a conversation in iMessage, WhatsApp, or Telegram. Forget about looking for contacts in the phone or contacts apps, as Phone Widget allows you to have your contacts directly on the home screen. The app comes with three different sizes of widgets that can hold up to 10 contacts each, which means that having quick access to your contacts has never been this easy. On iPad, widgets are available in 4 sizes and hold up to 20 contacts each. With themes, customizing your widgets is as easy as it gets. Change the color and appearance of a widget with just one tap!
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is monetization model: Phone Widget at free with in-app purchases against A2Z Groups's subscription. Phone Widget also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 82%). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. A2Z Groups sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per year and Phone Widget sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
A2Z Groups ships an update every 3 weeks, Phone Widget monthly. The most recent releases landed on October 20, 2026 and October 6, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | A2Z Groups | Phone Widget |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (3.9K ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 81.9% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 3.9K — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks — better | Monthly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Subscription | Free with in-app purchases — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 17 MB | 13 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Playa Apps | Erick Daniel Padilla |
Customer experience
A2Z Groups
Phone Widget
Bugs and requests
A2Z Groups
Reported bugs
4 issues- Contacts being deleted unexpectedly
- Inability to save contact information
- Syncing issues with Google/Outlook contacts
- Unreliable group messaging
Requested features
5 requests- Scheduled messaging
- Improved group management
- Better integration with native Contacts app
- Map feature
- Birthdays/anniversaries tracking
Phone Widget
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
A2Z Groups
- Premium (1 Year)2 variants$0.991 Year
- Premium (Lifetime Access)$1.99
- Make Contribution$4.99
- Larger Contribution$9.99
Phone Widget
- Phone Widget Unlimited$0.99
Questions
Is A2Z Groups free?
Is Phone Widget free?
Do A2Z Groups or Phone Widget have ads?
Which is updated more often, A2Z Groups or Phone Widget?
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