With the launch of iOS 18, Apple is taking iPhone customization to a brand new stage. Earlier than, you may simply add widgets to your Dwelling Display screen or rearrange its pages, apply your individual wallpaper, and, extra not too long ago, customise your Lock Display screen. In the meantime, energy customers downloaded apps that allowed them to customise their icons by the use of iOS Shortcuts and even created their very own icons utilizing icon designer instruments or photos they discovered on Pinterest, Google, or elsewhere.
With iOS 18, nonetheless, the potential to alter all of your icons to a brand new colour scheme is a built-in device.
It’s also possible to organize your icons and widgets in any method you like, as they not must be proper subsequent to one another in a grid. That method, you may select to border your wallpaper or place icons solely on the backside of the display, as an example.
Although the system for personalization has gotten considerably unwieldy as Apple has continued to roll out new choices, iOS 18 provides probably the most management over the appear and feel of your iPhone’s consumer interface than another model of Apple’s cellular working system to this point.
Now, with a press-and-hold in your iPhone’s Dwelling Display screen, you possibly can faucet the upper-left “Edit” button to enter the brand new customization mode. From right here, you’ll be capable to add widgets, edit Dwelling Display screen pages, or choose a brand new choice, “Customize,” to configure the colour and shading of the icons and widgets in your Dwelling Display screen.
iOS 18 presents 4 choices to your icons: the usual mild and darkish modes, in addition to an Automated mode that shifts from mild to darkish as nighttime falls, and the brand new “Tinted” choice. When chosen, Tinted allows you to use the eyedropper device (upper-right) to select a colour out of your Dwelling Display screen’s background that then tints the fill for the lighter a part of your icons.
As an illustration, in case your wallpaper contains a photograph from nature, you may decide the blue sky’s colour to function your icons’ tint. You possibly can additional alter the colour choices utilizing two backside sliders, one for the shade itself and one other for the saturation. (Sliding all of it the way in which over to white makes the tint much less obvious.)
This course of is usually a bit tough, and there’s been fairly some criticism, notably from designers, about how the ensuing Dwelling Display screen seems to be. It doesn’t really feel like Apple’s elevated design sense, however that’s the purpose: It’s your individual.
The function particularly caters to youthful customers who shortly took benefit of latest performance within the 2020 launch of iOS 14 to personalize their Dwelling Screens with customized icons launched through Shortcuts and widgets. Pinterest adoption soared on the time, as younger individuals turned to it for photos they may use as customized icons and themes. Apple shortly responded to customers’ curiosity on this pattern by altering how these customized icons would reply when tapped. That’s, as a substitute of annoying individuals by briefly opening the iOS Shortcuts app, as earlier than, it launched solely a small pop-up that will show when the app opened by the use of a customized icon.
However till now, Apple hasn’t made it potential for customers to customise their apps’ present icons with shades and colours of their selecting.
When you nonetheless can’t customise the design of the icon’s picture itself (with out using your individual shortcuts), builders can select to ship different icons as part of their app obtain. These icons are typically supplied as a part of a paid improve or subscription, relying on the developer’s choice. Not all apps provide different icons, although.
After selecting the icon you like from the apps that supply options, you possibly can then proceed to pick out the way you need them to seem: mild, darkish, or tinted.
Darkish icons give the Dwelling Display screen a special look (see photograph above on the left), as they keep some colours however sit on black backgrounds, permitting extra of your focus to shift to the telephone’s wallpaper. Tinted icons are related, however as a substitute of a number of colours, their lighter components are shaded with a colour of your selecting.
Uniform, darker icons whereas nonetheless in “light” mode
Like many others, I didn’t discover the darkish icons with their odd splashes of colour agreeable and the tinted icons don’t fairly match my tastes — although that’s extra of a private choice. Nonetheless, I discovered a method to create a Dwelling Display screen with extra muted shades.
To perform this, I toggled the choice from “Small” over to “Large” within the customization mode, which makes the icons barely bigger and removes their textual content label. Widgets’ labels are additionally eliminated once you shift to the Massive icons.
I then choose the choice for tinted icons, slide the underside slider over to the proper for much less saturation, and faucet the sunshine choice within the top-left of the customization window to change the general telephone display from darkish mode to mild. This creates a brighter, extra uniform look the place the icons seem in shades of black, white, and grey, as a substitute of the garish colours they normally are. (Particularly these horrible Google icons, which many memes have mocked).
A extra minimal Dwelling Display screen
In case you are in search of an much more minimalist Dwelling Display screen, an alternative choice now obtainable by iOS 18 allows you to forgo icons altogether.
One of many prime customization apps, Widgetsmith, has been up to date for iOS 18 to benefit from the brand new performance round giant, label-less widgets to supply a wide range of methods to customise your Dwelling Display screen with Actions. These Actions can be used through the Management Middle (accessed by swiping down from the highest of the telephone display) and might provide shortcuts to issues like taking part in a favourite album or calling your finest good friend, amongst different issues.
Management Middle apart, Widgetsmith consists of numerous Dwelling Display screen widgets that includes rows of personalized icons, every linked to a specific motion. With out widget labels, these can mix extra seamlessly into your Dwelling Display screen, permitting for a extra minimal — or at the very least extra uniform — look, the place each icon is in the identical type.
The app ships with a wide range of icon packs to customise their actions, or individuals can select their very own or use any SF image, that are the built-in symbols designed to combine with the system font for Apple’s platforms.
“The aesthetics … now possible in iOS 18 are really transformative to how your home screen feels,” says Widgetsmith’s developer David Smith. “Since Apple drops the requirement for widgets to have their subtitles you can completely take over your iPhone and make all of it your own.”
Nonetheless, the extra attention-grabbing thought Widgetsmith introduces is one in every of a Dwelling Display screen that doesn’t embody any icons.
As an alternative, you possibly can select to put in widgets that spell out in textual content the varied apps chances are you’ll need to entry, like Climate, Mail, Maps, Music, and Calendar. You could possibly use these alone on the display or alongside different widgets. You could possibly even choose to take away all of the icons out of your backside dock for a much less cluttered look.
Widgetsmith isn’t the one app that provides this type of performance, but it surely’s among the many best-known.
One other one centered particularly on minimalist Dwelling Screens is Dumb Cellphone, an app whose identify refers back to the easy consumer interface from the times earlier than the smartphone arrived. With Dumb Cellphone, you can too create an analogous minimalist Dwelling Display screen and alter the theme to Gentle or Darkish.
The app’s developer, Michael Tigas, claims that the modifications helped him reduce down on display time.
Utilizing icon placement to enhance your wallpaper
One other attention-grabbing concept that comes from the newly added potential to position icons anyplace in iOS 18 is that the icons themselves can change into part of your theme and wallpaper, mixing into the illustration in methods they couldn’t earlier than.
One app benefiting from this performance is Themify, a customization utility that now features a part of themes “inspired by iOS 18” on the prime of its Uncover web page.
Right here, you’ll discover themes (collections of wallpapers, widgets, and icons) the place icons change into part of the background, like one the place icons set to Massive mode change into planets within the photo voltaic system, or one other the place small icons change into wall décor.
Themify additionally helps different iOS options like Lock Display screen widgets and themes, contact posters, standby screens, and extra.
Different personalization apps I’ve used previously embody Brass, Aesthetic, Aesthetic Equipment, Greatest Widgets, Coloration Themes, Reskin, ThemeKit, ThemePack, Widgy, and Wallaroo for wallpapers.
Customizing your Dwelling Display screen is barely one of many new personalization choices that ship with iOS 18. Now you can swap out the shortcuts to apps, just like the Digicam and Flashlight, in your Lock Display screen, and you’ll arrange your Management Middle and add your individual actions from third-party apps, offered builders help the choice. It’s also possible to customise how the controls are laid out, grouped, and their dimension, Apple notes.
Need to share your iOS 18 customizations with me? Be a part of me on Threads or Bluesky and let me see your creations!
