Why cant Ipad users have widgets on the actual home screen like on Iphones??

The 'Today's View' feature makes the home screen extremely cramped on any Ipad other than the biggest one, and doesn't even stay on screen when held vertically. Why on earth can't you just add singular widgets rather than having a whole column that takes up half the screen? I understand how it would be useful for some but I just wanna see the weather fast while having the rest of my screen available to use. PLEASE consider changing this in a patch or something, because at the moment widgets are not useful for me and many others with smaller Ipads.