Which widget gets tl or tr first ?

if you need to specify something best to just stick a sortorder in apps.json

I think you want to put it in the widget code instead: the apps.json affects the order in the App Loader page, but loadWidgets() looks at the widget.

So something like

WIDGETS["lock"]={area:"tl",sortorder:-1,width:Bangle.isLocked()?16:0,...