With the launch of iOS 18, Apple is taking iPhone customization to a brand new degree. Earlier than, you can simply add widgets to your Residence Display screen or rearrange its pages, apply your personal 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 photographs they discovered on Pinterest, Google, or elsewhere.
With iOS 18, nevertheless, the skill to alter all of your icons to a brand new shade scheme is a built-in software.
You too can organize your icons and widgets in any approach you like, as they not must be proper subsequent to one another in a grid. That approach, you can select to border your wallpaper or place icons solely on the backside of the display, for example.
Although the system for personalisation has gotten considerably unwieldy as Apple has continued to roll out new choices, iOS 18 presents probably the most management over the feel and appear of your iPhone’s person interface than some other model of Apple’s cellular working system to this point.
Now, with a press-and-hold in your iPhone’s Residence 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 Residence Display screen pages, or choose a brand new possibility, “Customize,” to configure the colour and shading of the icons and widgets in your Residence Display screen.
iOS 18 presents 4 choices in your icons: the usual mild and darkish modes, in addition to an Computerized mode that shifts from mild to darkish as nighttime falls, and the brand new “Tinted” possibility. When chosen, Tinted enables you to use the eyedropper software (upper-right) to choose a shade out of your Residence Display screen’s background that then tints the fill for the lighter a part of your icons.
For example, in case your wallpaper incorporates a picture from nature, you can choose the blue sky’s shade to function your icons’ tint. You’ll be able to additional modify the colour choices utilizing two backside sliders, one for the shade itself and one other for the saturation. (Sliding all of it the best way over to white makes the tint much less obvious.)
This course of generally is a bit troublesome, and there’s been fairly some criticism, notably from designers, about how the ensuing Residence Display screen appears. It doesn’t really feel like Apple’s elevated design sense, however that’s the purpose: It’s your personal.
The characteristic particularly caters to youthful customers who rapidly took benefit of latest performance within the 2020 launch of iOS 14 to personalize their Residence Screens with customized icons launched through Shortcuts and widgets. Pinterest adoption soared on the time, as younger individuals turned to it for photographs they may use as customized icons and themes. Apple rapidly 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 may 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’ current icons with shades and colours of their selecting.
Whilst you nonetheless can’t customise the design of the icon’s picture itself (with out using your personal shortcuts), builders can select to ship various 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 various icons, although.
After selecting the icon you like from the apps that supply options, you possibly can then proceed to pick the way you need them to seem: mild, darkish, or tinted.
Darkish icons give the Residence Display screen a special look (see picture 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 comparable, however as a substitute of a number of colours, their lighter elements are shaded with a shade 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 shade agreeable and the tinted icons don’t fairly match my tastes — although that’s extra of a private choice. Nevertheless, I discovered a strategy to create a Residence 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 correct for much less saturation, and faucet the sunshine possibility within the top-left of the customization window to modify 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 often are. (Particularly these horrible Google icons, which many memes have mocked).
A extra minimal Residence Display screen
In case you are searching for an much more minimalist Residence Display screen, an alternative choice now accessible by iOS 18 enables 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 Residence Display screen with Actions. These Actions will also be used through the Management Heart (accessed by swiping down from the highest of the telephone display) and may provide shortcuts to issues like taking part in a favourite album or calling your greatest good friend, amongst different issues.
Management Heart apart, Widgetsmith consists of numerous Residence Display screen widgets that includes rows of custom-made icons, every linked to a selected motion. With out widget labels, these can mix extra seamlessly into your Residence Display screen, permitting for a extra minimal — or a minimum of extra uniform — look, the place each icon is in the identical model.
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.”
Nevertheless, the extra attention-grabbing concept Widgetsmith introduces is one in every of a Residence Display screen that doesn’t embrace any icons.
As an alternative, you possibly can select to put in widgets that spell out in textual content the varied apps it’s possible you’ll need to entry, like Climate, Mail, Maps, Music, and Calendar. You would use these alone on the display or alongside different widgets. You would even decide 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 gives this type of performance, however it’s among the many best-known.
One other one centered particularly on minimalist Residence Screens is Dumb Cellphone, an app whose title refers back to the easy person interface from the times earlier than the smartphone arrived. With Dumb Cellphone, you can too create the same minimalist Residence Display screen and modify the theme to Gentle or Darkish.
The app’s developer, Michael Tigas, claims that the adjustments 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 skill to position icons wherever in iOS 18 is that the icons themselves can turn into part of your theme and wallpaper, mixing into the illustration in methods they couldn’t earlier than.
One app making the most of 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 turn into part of the background, like one the place icons set to Massive mode turn into planets within the photo voltaic system, or one other the place small icons turn into wall decor.
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 embrace Brass, Aesthetic, Aesthetic Package, Finest Widgets, Coloration Themes, Reskin, ThemeKit, ThemePack, Widgy, and Wallaroo for wallpapers.
Customizing your Residence Display screen is just 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 may arrange your Management Heart and add your personal actions from third-party apps, supplied builders assist the choice. You too can customise how the controls are laid out, grouped, and their dimension, Apple notes.
Wish to share your iOS 18 customizations with me? Be part of me on Threads or Bluesky and let me see your creations!
