With the launch of iOS 18, Apple is taking iPhone customization to a brand new degree. Earlier than, you might simply add widgets to your Dwelling Display or rearrange its pages, apply your individual wallpaper, and, extra not too long ago, customise your Lock Display. 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 means to alter all of your icons to a brand new coloration scheme is a built-in device.
You can even organize your icons and widgets in any manner you like, as they now not need to be proper subsequent to one another in a grid. That manner, you might select to border your wallpaper or place icons solely on the backside of the display screen, for example.
Although the system for personalisation has gotten considerably unwieldy as Apple has continued to roll out new choices, iOS 18 affords probably the most management over the feel and appear of your iPhone’s person interface than every other model of Apple’s cellular working system thus far.
Now, with a press-and-hold in your iPhone’s Dwelling Display, you’ll be able to faucet the upper-left “Edit” button to enter the brand new customization mode. From right here, you’ll be capable of add widgets, edit Dwelling Display pages, or choose a brand new possibility, “Customize,” to configure the colour and shading of the icons and widgets in your Dwelling Display.
iOS 18 presents 4 choices in your icons: the usual gentle and darkish modes, in addition to an Automated mode that shifts from gentle to darkish as nighttime falls, and the brand new “Tinted” possibility. When chosen, Tinted enables you to use the eyedropper device (upper-right) to choose a coloration out of your Dwelling Display’s background that then tints the fill for the lighter a part of your icons.
As an illustration, in case your wallpaper includes a photograph from nature, you might choose the blue sky’s coloration to function your icons’ tint. You may 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 tough, and there’s been fairly some criticism, notably from designers, about how the ensuing Dwelling Display seems. 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 by way of Shortcuts and widgets. Pinterest adoption soared on the time, as younger folks turned to it for photos they may use as customized icons and themes. Apple shortly responded to customers’ curiosity on this development by altering how these customized icons would reply when tapped. That’s, as an alternative of annoying folks by briefly opening the iOS Shortcuts app, as earlier than, it launched solely a small pop-up that might 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.
When you nonetheless can’t customise the design of the icon’s picture itself (with out the usage of your individual shortcuts), builders can select to ship different icons as part of their app obtain. These icons are generally provided as a part of a paid improve or subscription, relying on the developer’s desire. Not all apps supply different icons, although.
After selecting the icon you like from the apps that provide alternate options, you’ll be able to then proceed to pick the way you need them to look: gentle, darkish, or tinted.
Darkish icons give the Dwelling Display a special look (see photograph above on the left), as they preserve some colours however sit on black backgrounds, permitting extra of your focus to shift to the cellphone’s wallpaper. Tinted icons are comparable, however as an alternative of a number of colours, their lighter components are shaded with a coloration 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 coloration agreeable and the tinted icons don’t fairly match my tastes — although that’s extra of a private desire. Nonetheless, I discovered a solution to create a Dwelling Display 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 whenever you shift to the Massive icons.
I then choose the choice for tinted icons, slide the underside slider over to the appropriate for much less saturation, and faucet the sunshine possibility within the top-left of the customization window to change the general cellphone display screen from darkish mode to gentle. This creates a brighter, extra uniform look the place the icons seem in shades of black, white, and grey, as an alternative of the garish colours they often are. (Particularly these horrible Google icons, which many memes have mocked).
A extra minimal Dwelling Display
In case you are searching for an much more minimalist Dwelling Display, another choice now obtainable by iOS 18 enables you to forgo icons altogether.
One of many high customization apps, Widgetsmith, has been up to date for iOS 18 to reap the benefits of the brand new performance round giant, label-less widgets to supply a wide range of methods to customise your Dwelling Display with Actions. These Actions can be used by way of the Management Middle (accessed by swiping down from the highest of the cellphone display screen) and may supply shortcuts to issues like taking part in a favourite album or calling your finest good friend, amongst different issues.
Management Middle apart, Widgetsmith contains varied Dwelling Display 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, permitting for a extra minimal — or at the 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 folks 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 considered one of a Dwelling Display that doesn’t embody any icons.
As a substitute, you’ll be able to select to put in widgets that spell out in textual content the varied apps you could wish to entry, like Climate, Mail, Maps, Music, and Calendar. You would use these alone on the display screen or alongside different widgets. You would 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 kind of performance, however it’s among the many best-known.
One other one centered particularly on minimalist Dwelling 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 an identical minimalist Dwelling Display and modify the theme to Mild or Darkish.
The app’s developer, Michael Tigas, claims that the modifications helped him minimize down on display screen time.
Utilizing icon placement to enrich your wallpaper
One other attention-grabbing concept that comes from the newly added means to put icons wherever in iOS 18 is that the icons themselves can turn out to be 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 high of its Uncover web page.
Right here, you’ll discover themes (collections of wallpapers, widgets, and icons) the place icons turn out to be part of the background, like one the place icons set to Massive mode turn out to be planets within the photo voltaic system, or one other the place small icons turn out to be wall décor.
Themify additionally helps different iOS options like Lock Display widgets and themes, contact posters, standby screens, and extra.
Different personalization apps I’ve used prior to now embody Brass, Aesthetic, Aesthetic Package, Finest Widgets, Shade Themes, Reskin, ThemeKit, ThemePack, Widgy, and Wallaroo for wallpapers.
Customizing your Dwelling Display is simply 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, and you may set up your Management Middle and add your individual actions from third-party apps, supplied builders help the choice. You can even customise how the controls are laid out, grouped, and their dimension, Apple notes.
Need to share your iOS 18 customizations with me? Be part of me on Threads or Bluesky and let me see your creations!
