For years, one of the benefits of choosing Android over iOS has been that you can escape the strict grid of app icons used on the iPhone’s home screen: Phones powered by Google’s mobile operating system let you experiment with different layouts and include interactive Small parts, or even modify the entire interface with transmitter.
Check out the iPhone 16 at Best Buy
Check out the iPhone 16 Pro at Best Buy
The customization gap has narrowed recently, and with the release of iOS 18, it’s smaller than ever. Controlling the appearance of the interface – and there are three separate areas to look at.
Customize home screen
You’ll be spending a lot of time looking at your home screens, so it makes sense to make them look the way you want them to. Recent versions of iOS introduced home screen widgets and the option to hide parts of the home screen (the App Library contains everything you have installed), but iOS 18 takes home screen customization even further.
Now you can leave a gap anywhere in the home screen grid without any workarounds or third-party apps. Press and hold the home screen shortcut until all icons start shaking. You can delete the application shortcut by clicking on it. – (minus sign) icon and select Remove from home screen. You can then drag the icon to leave gaps, and iOS won’t fill them in automatically.
If you have a wallpaper that you like the look of, you may want to keep all app icons at the bottom or top of the screen. You can also adjust the color of these icons and change how they adapt when switching between light and dark modes. Long press any app shortcut to move all app tiles, then tap edit (top left) and Customization.
You have four options: Always in light mode, always in dark mode, always follow the light or dark mode system settings, or use a special tint you set (click colored Bring up the color picker). Above these options, you can change the size of the illustration by switching between the Small and Large options. also.
Custom control center
As iOS versions are constantly updated, the Control Center becomes more and more useful, and iOS 18 is no exception. If you open the Control Panel the usual way, by swiping down from the top right corner of the screen, you’ll see that there are four preset screens that you can swipe up and down to browse.
These screens include Favorites, Music, Home, and Connections, which you can click + (plus sign) icon in the upper right corner. For example, on the Favorites screen, you can drag the control around, use the edge handles to change the size of the control widget, and then click – The (minus sign) icon is used to delete a control. tap Add a new control Add content at the bottom.
The other screens work the same, with some minor differences (for example, you can’t edit individual entries on the Connections page). On the Music screen, the widget defaults to full screen, but you can make it smaller and fit more controls next to it if you wish – there’s one for each screen Add a new control options.
There are little icons on the right side of the display that show you which screen you’re currently on, and at the bottom of this column you’ll see a little dot – click on it to create a new Control Center screen that you can configure however you want . Finally, through Control Center in Settings, you can set whether Control Center can be accessed when inside an application (and on the home screen).
Customize lock screen
Back in 2022, Apple gave the iPhone lock screen a real makeover in iOS 16, and while the changes in iOS 18 are less dramatic, there’s still one tweak worth mentioning: For the first time, you can change the flashlight and camera shortcuts on the lock screen or remove them entirely.
With the lock screen visible, tap and hold somewhere on it and select Customization and lock screen. Familiar options for putting gadgets on the lock screen will appear, and you can also click on the time and date to change the format of those elements. Buttons for turning the depth effect on and off and switching between light and dark modes are also here.
The changes are at the bottom: you can click – The (minus) button next to the flashlight or camera shortcut removes it from its default location. You can leave this location blank or click + (plus) button puts additional content in its place. When finished editing, click complete Save your changes.
You have a variety of options when it comes to replacing the flashlight and camera buttons: You can add shortcuts to a stopwatch or timer, record a voice memo or open Apple Wallet, jump to the calculator, turn on an iPhone hotspot, and more. choose Open applicationthe shortcut can point to any application you like.
Check out the iPhone 16 at Best Buy
Check out the iPhone 16 Pro at Best Buy
