With iOS 18, Apple overhauled the Dwelling Display screen, introducing design modifications that permit for extra customization and personalization. You’ll be able to put icons the place you need, change their measurement, and provides them new colours, plus you may disguise apps and swap out your Lock Display screen buttons.
This information highlights all the things new coming to the iOS 18 Dwelling Display screen and Lock Display screen.
Rearranging Icons
With iOS 18, you may rearrange app icons and widgets in your Dwelling Display screen and app pages with house between them, offering a wealth of recent structure choices.
Apple caught with a grid system so you may solely transfer app icons inside the grid areas, however an icon could be positioned anyplace within the grid with empty house round it. That sounds sophisticated, however with iOS 17, for those who added a brand new app to your Dwelling Display screen, it will robotically go to the subsequent open spot.
In iOS 18, you may select the place to place it. You’ll be able to have app icon-sized areas between apps, full empty rows, and full empty columns. You’ll be able to’t put icons and widgets in locations with uneven spacing due to the invisible grid limitation, so maintain that in thoughts.
You’ll be able to put a single app in the course of a web page, have a row of apps on the prime and a row of apps on the backside, create a column of apps, and extra. Apple created this design to can help you place apps and widgets round wallpapers and organize them into extra helpful layouts.
This is how you can transfer your icons:
- Lengthy press on the Dwelling Display screen or on an app web page to provoke wiggle mode.
- Transfer apps into the specified positions.
- Faucet on performed.
Improve Icon Measurement
You can also make your app icons greater in iOS 18 by eradicating the app names. With app names in place, Apple wants house to show them, however eradicating them opens up numerous space for a bigger icon and folder measurement. Altering the app measurement doesn’t change the variety of apps which can be seen, it merely removes textual content and makes use of up that vacant house.
With bigger icons, you continue to get a most of six icon rows with 4 icons every, the identical that you simply’re restricted to when icon names are turned on. To vary icon measurement, observe these steps:
- Lengthy press on the Dwelling Display screen or an app web page.
- Faucet on “Edit.”
- Faucet on “Customize.”
- Select Small to activate app names, or Giant to show them off.
Observe that this setting is common, so you can not have small icons on one app web page and huge icons on a distinct app web page.
You’ll be able to change the scale of widgets instantly from the Dwelling Display screen with out having to enter the customization choices. Widgets now have a white rounded bar within the nook, which you’ll drag to make them bigger or smaller.
- Lengthy press on the Dwelling Display screen or an app web page to get into wiggle mode.
- Use a finger to resize the widget to be smaller or bigger.
You’re restricted to the minimal and most measurement obtainable with any given widget. For instance, the Battery widget could be the scale of 4 app icons, six horizontal app icons in two rows, or a sq. form that is 4 icons large by 4 icons tall. Once you resize the Battery widget, you might be restricted to these measurement choices, however you do not want to enter the total widget settings to vary the scale.
Widgets are nonetheless added to your Dwelling Display screen and app pages in the identical method, although a number of the labeling has shifted. Lengthy press and faucet on “Edit,” then select the “Add Widget” possibility. It is another faucet than it was earlier than because of the new customization choices.
If an app has a widget, you can even lengthy press on its icon to see widget choices proper there, turning the app’s icon right into a widget as a substitute.
Apple added a brand new Well being widget in iOS 18 that exhibits data from the brand new Vitals function that is each within the Well being app and on Apple Watch. It gives an summary of each day vitals or weekly vitals, plus there’s additionally a brand new widget for cycle monitoring.
Vitals aggregates data from the Apple Watch to supply a each day readout of how your coronary heart charge, sleep patterns, respiration, and blood oxygen change from everyday and week to week.
There’s a new Journal widget as nicely, with choices that present a writing immediate that you would be able to faucet on to open up the app to reply. You can too choose a Streaks widget that retains observe of what number of days in a row you have used the Journal app.
For the brand new Coaching Load function on Apple Watch, Apple has added a corresponding widget within the Health widget part.
Within the Dwelling widget part, there are new widgets for electrical energy utilization and electrical energy charges (a function coming to pick out customers in iOS 18 later this 12 months).
Darkish Mode Icons
Apple’s built-in apps have each Mild and Darkish colour choices in iOS 18, which lets you change the colour of your icons when you’ve got Darkish Mode turned on. The Darkish icons are all redesigned with a black background reasonably than a white or coloured background, which makes them mix in higher with the Darkish Mode setting.
You’ll be able to activate Darkish icons independently of getting Darkish Mode enabled, so you may depart Mild mode on whereas utilizing the Darkish icon possibility. You can too set icons to an computerized mode, which suggests they will change colour relying on whether or not Darkish Mode or Mild Mode is lively.
Proper now, it is solely Apple’s apps which have a Darkish possibility, however third-party builders will presumably additionally be capable of embody two colour choices for his or her icons when iOS 18 launches.
To associate with the Darkish Mode icons, Apple additionally launched a toggle that makes your wallpaper darker. This is how you can change your icon and wallpaper colour:
- Lengthy press on the Dwelling Display screen or an app web page.
- Faucet on “Edit.”
- Faucet on “Customize.”
- Choose Computerized, Darkish, Mild, or Tinted, an possibility described under. That is additionally the interface used to vary app icon measurement, and darken your wallpaper (the solar icon).
The wallpaper possibility makes your chosen wallpaper a bit darker in colour, dimming brilliant shades when enabled. Tapping toggles Mild and Darkish modes, with Mild being your customary wallpaper colour.
Icon Tints
Along with selecting a Darkish Mode on your app icons, you may decide to place a tint over all of them, which is an aesthetic that is helpful if you wish to match a wallpaper.
You can not change icon colours individually, and the tint modifications the shade of all of the icons en masse. You need to use an eyedropper to decide on a colour out of your wallpaper, or you need to use the 2 bars to tweak each hue and saturation. Tinting works with all icons as a result of it desaturates after which locations a colour over the desaturated icon, so that you do lose particular person colours in app icons and widgets. It is a very monochromatic look.
As with icon measurement, it is a common setting so you can not have totally different tints for various app pages. Tinting impacts not solely your app pages and Dwelling Display screen, but additionally the App Library. To vary an icon tint:
- Lengthy press on the Dwelling Display screen or an app web page.
- Faucet on “Edit.”
- Faucet on “Customize.”
- Choose Tinted and use the sliders to regulate the tint to your perfect colour.
To show off a tint, observe these identical steps after which select “Light” or “Dark” to get again to the usual app icon colours.
Hiding and Locking Apps
iOS 18 features a safety function for locking apps and even hiding them completely out of your Dwelling Display screen and app pages. A locked app requires a Face ID or Contact ID scan to open, so if somebody is utilizing your unlocked iPhone, they nonetheless will not be capable of open apps you have disabled.
Hiding an app does the identical factor as locking it, however goes a step additional and removes it from view completely. You may solely see it in a Hidden folder within the App Library, which additionally requires authentication to entry. Locked and Hidden apps don’t present up in searches on the iPhone, they don’t seem to be accessible by Siri with out authentication, and notifications and alerts like calls from the app are disabled, in order that they’re completely personal with out authentication.
The choice to lock and conceal apps is beneficial for when it’s essential hand your telephone over to somebody for viewing photographs, taking part in video games, or comparable conditions.
For a locked app, there is no such thing as a signal that it is locked till somebody makes an attempt to open it, at which level there is a Face ID or Contact ID authentication immediate. For hidden apps, they merely do not present up anyplace besides the App Library.
Apps do present up in your App Retailer buy/obtain checklist, however they do not present up within the Settings app. Settings for hidden apps could be accessed in a separate “Hidden Apps” folder that does require authentication to open up. Tips on how to lock or disguise an app:
- Lengthy press on the icon of the app that you simply wish to lock or disguise.
- Faucet on “Require Face ID.”
- If you wish to merely lock an app, faucet on “Require Face ID” once more. If you wish to disguise it, select “Hide and Require Face ID.”
- Authenticate with a Face ID or Contact ID scan.
- For a locked app, that is it. For a hidden app, you may see a display screen letting you understand that you simply will not get notifications or calls from the app.
- Faucet “Hide App.”
To take away the lock on an app, lengthy press once more on the icon on the Dwelling Display screen or app web page and select “Don’t Require Face ID.” You have to to authenticate to show it off.
To unhide an app, go to the App Library, choose the Hidden part, authenticate with Face ID or Contact ID, lengthy press on the app icon, and select “Don’t Require Face ID or “Unhide App.” The primary possibility turns off the lock and retains the app off of the Dwelling Display screen, whereas the second each turns off the authentication requirement and provides it again to the primary obtainable opening on an app web page.
In case you flip off the lock and don’t add it again to the Dwelling Display screen, you may want to seek out it within the App Library to place it again on the Dwelling Display screen later.
Lock Display screen Updates
Apple did not make main modifications to the Lock Display screen as a result of it was simply overhauled with iOS 17, however there are just a few updates price noting.
Rainbow Time and Different New Lock Display screen Widget Choices
With iOS 17, Apple added an choice to customise the font and the colour of the time on the Lock Display screen, and in iOS 18, there is a new rainbow colour possibility that provides a variegated rainbow shade for the time. There aren’t any different modifications to font or colour choices.
Above the time, you may add a brand new Journal widget that presents a journaling immediate and opens the app while you faucet it.
For widget choices, there are new Well being app Vitals widgets, and new entries for electrical energy utilization and charges. These match the brand new Dwelling Display screen widgets.
Fast Buttons
For the primary time, you may change the Flashlight and Digital camera icons on the Lock Display screen, choosing one thing extra helpful or turning them off completely.
You’ll be able to select any Management Heart possibility for the Lock Display screen buttons, together with Shortcuts, Darkish Mode, Airplane Mode, Distant, Alarm Calculator, Translate, and extra. This alteration ties right into a redesign of the Management Heart, and it offers you much more potentialities for what you may launch from the Lock Display screen.
Apple is permitting third-party apps so as to add Management Heart icons, so you can even select from these. Relying on what you decide, you could want to make use of Face ID or Contact ID to authenticate earlier than having the ability to entry an app from the Lock Display screen with a view to protect consumer privateness and maintain delicate knowledge from being simply accessible.
To vary your Lock Display screen buttons, observe these steps:
- Lengthy press on the Lock Display screen after authenticating.
- Faucet on Customise.
- Faucet on Lock Display screen.
- From this interface, faucet on the “-” icon to take away any apps which can be already assigned to these buttons. In case you’re doing this for the primary time, you may have the Flashlight and Digital camera apps set to the default, which have to be eliminated.
- From there, faucet on the “+” button and select a brand new management so as to add.
- Faucet on Carried out within the higher proper nook.
iOS 18 Wallpaper
There are 4 new iOS 18 wallpaper choices in pink, yellow, azure, and purple with an identical darker coloured swoop. These all have a Mild Mode and a Darkish Mode shade personalized by Apple, with the Darkish Mode that includes a background glow for the darker a part of the design.
You could find the brand new wallpapers by lengthy urgent on the Lock Display screen, and selecting Customise to change an present wallpaper or “+” so as to add a brand new one completely.
Learn Extra
Extra on the entire new options that have been added in iOS 18 could be present in our iOS 18 roundup.