With the release of iOS 18, Apple is taking iPhone customization to a new level. It's always been easy to add widgets to your home screen, rearrange pages, apply your own wallpaper, and most recently customize your lock screen. Meanwhile, power users have been downloading apps that let them customize icons using iOS Shortcuts, or creating their own icons using icon designer tools or images they find on Pinterest, Google, etc.
However, with iOS 18, changing all your icons to the new color scheme is now a built-in tool.
Icons and widgets no longer have to be placed next to each other in a grid, so you can place them however you like, for example, you can frame your wallpaper or place icons only at the bottom of the screen.
While the customization system has become a bit unwieldy as Apple continues to roll out new options, iOS 18 offers the most control over the look and feel of your iPhone's user interface than any other version of Apple's mobile operating system to date.
When you long-press on your iPhone's home screen, you can tap the “Edit” button at the top-left to enter the new customization mode. From here, you can add widgets, edit your home screen pages, or select the new option “Customize” to set the color and shading of your home screen icons and widgets.
Image credit: iPhone screenshot
iOS 18 gives you four options for icons: standard light and dark modes, an automatic mode that switches from light to dark at night, and a new “Tinted” option. Selecting “Tinted” lets you use the eyedropper tool (top right) to pick a color from your home screen background to tint the fill of the light areas of your icons.
For example, if your wallpaper is a nature photo, you can choose a sky blue tint for your icon. You can further adjust the color options using the two sliders at the bottom: one for the hue itself, and one for the saturation. (Slide all the way up to white for a less noticeable tint.)
This process can be a bit tricky, and we've seen quite a bit of criticism, especially from designers, about the look of the finished home screen — it doesn't feel like Apple's polished design sense, but that's the point: it's yours.
This feature is targeted specifically at young users who were early adopters of the new iOS 14 feature released in 2020 and customized their home screens with custom icons launched from shortcuts and widgets. At the time, Pinterest saw a surge in adoption as young people turned to it for images they could use as custom icons and themes. Apple was quick to respond to user interest in this trend and changed how these custom icons react when tapped. That is, instead of bothering users by briefly opening the iOS Shortcuts app as before, Apple introduced only a small popup that appears when you open an app with a custom icon.
But until now, Apple hasn't allowed users to customize an app's existing icons with their preferred shades and colors.
While you cannot customize the design of the icon images themselves (without using your own shortcuts), developers may choose to distribute alternative icons as part of the app download. These icons may be offered as part of a paid upgrade or subscription, depending on the developer's preference. However, not all apps offer alternative icons.
After selecting your preferred icon from apps that offer alternatives, you can choose how you want the icon to appear: light, dark, or colored.
Image credit: Apple
Dark icons give your home screen a different look (see the photo above on the left). Dark icons keep some of the colors but have a black background, allowing you to focus more attention on your phone's wallpaper. Colored icons are similar, but instead of multiple colors, the light areas are shaded with the color of your choice.
Image credit: Apple
Stay in “light” mode, icons will be uniformly dark
Like many others, I don't like the dark icons with their weird color splashes, and the colored icons aren't really to my taste either (although that's a matter of personal preference), but I've found a way to create a home screen with a more muted color scheme.
To achieve this, we switched the option from “Small” to “Large” in the customize mode, which makes the icons a bit larger and removes the text labels. Switching to larger icons also removes the widget labels.
Image credit: iPhone screenshot
Next, select the Colored Icons option, slide the slider at the bottom to the right to reduce saturation, and tap the Sunshine option at the top left of the customization window to switch the entire phone screen from dark to light mode. This will cause icons to appear in shades of black, white, and gray instead of the usual garish colors, giving them a brighter, more uniform look (especially that awful Google icon that's been mocked in many memes).
A simpler home screen
If you're looking for an even more minimalist home screen, another option available in iOS 18 lets you omit icons entirely.
Widgetsmith, one of the top customization apps, has been updated for iOS 18 to take advantage of the new feature of large unlabeled widgets and provide more ways to customize your Home screen with Actions. These Actions are also available from Control Center (accessed by swiping down from the top of the Phone screen) and can provide shortcuts like playing your favorite album or calling your best friend.
Image credit: Widgetsmith
Beyond the Control Center, Widgetsmith includes a range of home screen widgets, each with a row of customized icons linked to a specific action. Because there are no widget labels, these blend seamlessly into your home screen, allowing for a more minimalist (or at least more uniform) look, with all icons displayed in the same style.
The app comes with a variety of icon packs to customize your actions, or you can choose your own icons or use SF Symbols, built-in symbols designed to integrate with system fonts on Apple platforms.
Image credit: Widgetsmith
“The aesthetics enabled by iOS 18 really change the way the home screen feels,” says Widgetsmith developer David Smith. “Now that Apple has done away with the requirement that widgets have captions, you can take complete control of your iPhone and make it all yours.”
But a more interesting idea that Widgetsmith introduces is a home screen that doesn't contain any icons at all.
Alternatively, you can install widgets that display text for the various apps you want to access, such as Weather, Mail, Maps, Music, Calendar, etc. These can be used alone on the screen or alongside other widgets. You can also remove all icons from the bottom dock for a cleaner look.
Image credit: Widgetsmith
Widgetsmith isn't the only app that offers this kind of functionality, but it is one of the most well-known.
Another app dedicated to minimalist home screens is Dumb Phone, an app named after the simple user interface that existed before the advent of smartphones. Dumb Phone lets you create a similarly minimalist home screen and even adjust the theme to be light or dark.
App developer Michael Tiggas claims the changes will reduce screen time.
Image credit: Damfong
Use icon placement to complement your wallpaper
Another interesting idea that comes from iOS 18's newly added ability to place icons anywhere is that the icons themselves can become part of a theme or wallpaper, blending into an illustration in a way that wasn't possible before.
One app taking advantage of this feature is Themify, a customization utility that has added a section for “iOS 18 inspired” themes at the top of its Discover page.
Image credit: Themify
Here you will find themes (collections of wallpapers, widgets and icons) in which icons become part of the background, for example icons set in large mode become planets of the solar system, or small icons become wall decorations.
Themify also supports other iOS features such as lock screen widgets and themes, contact poster, standby screen, and more.
Image credit: Themify
Other personalization apps I've used in the past include Brass, Aesthetic, Aesthetic Kit, Best Widgets, Color Themes, Reskin, ThemeKit, ThemePack, Widgy, and Wallaroo for wallpapers.
Customizing your home screen is just one of the new personalization options coming to iOS 18. You can now swap out shortcuts to apps like the camera or flashlight on the lock screen, and you can organize your Control Center and add custom actions from third-party apps if the developer supports the option. You can also customize the layout, grouping, and size of controls, Apple said.
Want to share your iOS 18 customizations with me? Join me on Threads or Bluesky and show me your creations!