With the launch of iOS 18, Apple is taking iPhone customization to a brand new degree. Earlier than, you could possibly 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 means of iOS Shortcuts and even created their very own icons utilizing icon designer instruments or pictures they discovered on Pinterest, Google, or elsewhere.
With iOS 18, nonetheless, the skill to alter all of your icons to a brand new colour scheme is a built-in software.
You may as well organize your icons and widgets in any approach you favor, as they not need to be proper subsequent to one another in a grid. That approach, you could possibly select to border your wallpaper or place icons solely on the backside of the display screen, for example.
Although the system for personalization 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 some other model of Apple’s cellular working system up to now.
Now, with a press-and-hold in your iPhone’s Dwelling Display, you may 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 choice, “Customise,” 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 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 software (upper-right) to choose a colour 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 picture from nature, you could possibly choose the blue sky’s colour to function your icons’ tint. You possibly can additional regulate 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 Dwelling Display appears. 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 rapidly 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 pictures they might use as customized icons and themes. Apple rapidly responded to customers’ curiosity on this development 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 means of a customized icon.
However till now, Apple hasn’t made it doable 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 various icons as part of their app obtain. These icons are typically provided 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 favor from the apps that supply alternate options, you may then proceed to pick out the way you need them to look: mild, darkish, or tinted.
Darkish icons give the Dwelling Display a unique 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 related, however as a substitute of a number of colours, their lighter elements are shaded with a colour of your selecting.
Uniform, darker icons whereas nonetheless in “mild” 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. Nevertheless, I discovered a strategy to create a Dwelling Display with extra muted shades.
To perform this, I toggled the choice from “Small” over to “Giant” 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 Giant icons.
I then choose the choice for tinted icons, slide the underside slider over to the best for much less saturation, and faucet the sunshine choice within the top-left of the customization window to change the general telephone display screen 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 Dwelling Display
If you’re on the lookout for an much more minimalist Dwelling Display, another choice now out there by iOS 18 allows 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 massive, label-less widgets to supply a wide range of methods to customise your Dwelling Display with Actions. These Actions can be used through the Management Middle (accessed by swiping down from the highest of the telephone display screen) and might provide shortcuts to issues like taking part in a favourite album or calling your greatest buddy, amongst different issues.
Management Middle apart, Widgetsmith contains varied Dwelling Display widgets that includes rows of personalized icons, every linked to a selected motion. With out widget labels, these can mix extra seamlessly into your Dwelling Display, permitting for a extra minimal — or at the very least 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 doable in iOS 18 are actually transformative to how your house display screen feels,” says Widgetsmith’s developer David Smith. “Since Apple drops the requirement for widgets to have their subtitles you may fully take over your iPhone and make all of it your individual.”
Nevertheless, the extra fascinating thought Widgetsmith introduces is one in every of a Dwelling Display that doesn’t embody any icons.
As an alternative, you may select to put in widgets that spell out in textual content the varied apps you might wish to entry, like Climate, Mail, Maps, Music, and Calendar. You could possibly use these alone on the display screen 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 gives this type of performance, nevertheless it’s among the many best-known.
One other one centered particularly on minimalist Dwelling Screens is Dumb Telephone, an app whose identify refers back to the easy person interface from the times earlier than the smartphone arrived. With Dumb Telephone, you may also create the same minimalist Dwelling Display and regulate the theme to Mild or Darkish.
The app’s developer, Michael Tigas, claims that the adjustments helped him reduce down on display screen time.
Utilizing icon placement to enhance your wallpaper
One other fascinating concept that comes from the newly added skill to put icons wherever 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 making the most of this performance is Themify, a customization utility that now features a part of themes “impressed 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 change into part of the background, like one the place icons set to Giant mode change into planets within the photo voltaic system, or one other the place small icons change into wall decor.
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 Equipment, Greatest Widgets, Coloration 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, offered builders help the choice. You may as well customise how the controls are laid out, grouped, and their measurement, 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!