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 personal wallpaper, and, extra lately, 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 photographs they discovered on Pinterest, Google, or elsewhere.
With iOS 18, nonetheless, the capability to vary all of your icons to a brand new colour scheme is a built-in software.
You may also organize your icons and widgets in any method you favor, as they not must be proper subsequent to one another in a grid. That method, you could possibly select to border your wallpaper or place icons solely on the backside of the display, as an illustration.
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 appear and feel of your iPhone’s person interface than another model of Apple’s cell 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 have the ability to add widgets, edit Dwelling Display pages, or choose a brand new possibility, “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” possibility. When chosen, Tinted permits you to use the eyedropper software (upper-right) to select a colour out of your Dwelling Display’s background that then tints the fill for the lighter a part of your icons.
As an example, in case your wallpaper encompasses a photograph from nature, you could possibly choose the blue sky’s colour to function your icons’ tint. You’ll be able to 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 best way over to white makes the tint much less obvious.)
This course of could be a bit troublesome, and there’s been fairly some criticism, significantly from designers, about how the ensuing Dwelling Display appears to be like. 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 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 photographs 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 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 means of a customized icon.
However till now, Apple hasn’t made it attainable for customers to customise their apps’ present 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 desire. Not all apps supply various icons, although.
After selecting the icon you favor from the apps that supply options, you may then proceed to pick out the way you need them to seem: mild, darkish, or tinted.
Darkish icons give the Dwelling Display a distinct 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 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 “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 desire. Nonetheless, 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 appropriate for much less saturation, and faucet the sunshine possibility within the top-left of the customization window to change the general cellphone 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
If you’re in search of an much more minimalist Dwelling Display, an alternative choice now accessible by way of iOS 18 permits you to forgo icons altogether.
One of many high customization apps, Widgetsmith, has been up to date for iOS 18 to make the most 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 may also be used by way of the Management Heart (accessed by swiping down from the highest of the cellphone display) and might supply shortcuts to issues like taking part in a favourite album or calling your greatest pal, amongst different issues.
Management Heart 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 no less than 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 attainable in iOS 18 are actually transformative to how your private home display feels,” says Widgetsmith’s developer David Smith. “Since Apple drops the requirement for widgets to have their subtitles you may utterly take over your iPhone and make all of it your personal.”
Nonetheless, the extra fascinating concept Widgetsmith introduces is considered one of a Dwelling Display that doesn’t embrace any icons.
As a substitute, you may select to put in widgets that spell out in textual content the varied apps you might need to entry, like Climate, Mail, Maps, Music, and Calendar. You might use these alone on the display or alongside different widgets. You might 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 person interface from the times earlier than the smartphone arrived. With Dumb Cellphone, you may also create an identical minimalist Dwelling Display 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 fascinating concept that comes from the newly added capability to position icons wherever in iOS 18 is that the icons themselves can develop 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 develop into part of the background, like one the place icons set to Giant mode develop into planets within the photo voltaic system, or one other the place small icons develop 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 embrace Brass, Aesthetic, Aesthetic Package, Finest Widgets, Shade Themes, Reskin, ThemeKit, ThemePack, Widgy, and Wallaroo for wallpapers.
Customizing your Dwelling Display 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, and you may arrange your Management Heart and add your personal actions from third-party apps, offered builders assist the choice. You may also 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!
