Apple’s WWDCwas filled with many interesting new features coming to products across the Apple lineup, but one of the more interesting changes from standard Apple fare is the range ofcustomizations coming to iOS 18. In one of the biggest breakaways from how the iPhone has looked for over a decade, Apple is now giving users a lot more control over how their home screens look.
While the news is exciting insofar as finally being able to have blank spaces on your home screen without having to install sketchy blank widget apps, it’s also well past due. The iPhone is over 15 years old. Why is Apple just now letting users have the most basic of customizations?
The iOS 18 home screen
What’s old is new to Apple
Customizable icons and free form app grids are coming to the iPhone home screen with iOS 18. This is novel for those that have never held an Android, but it’s not exactly impressive. Customizable app grids and icons have been a thing on Android for a very long time, and with more options, such as changing icon shapes. Not exactly the most impressive set of changes ever made to iOS, but they will almost certainly be the most immediately recognizable. Aside from the addition of widgets a few years ago, the iPhone home screen has looked largely the same since the release of iOS 7. Anything that radically changes that look is going to be noticeable across the board.
In typical Apple fashion, the new customizations do look fantastic. But while Apple has always been good at protecting users from poor taste, they’ve never been good at allowing true customization. Being able to set custom colors for your iPhone’s icons is a good step, and is going to allow for a great range of potential aesthetic home screen set-ups. However, this isn’t exactly what people are looking for when they say “customizable app icons.” That being said, while it would’ve been preferable to have completely customizable icons that can be changed to whatever you please, something is ultimately better than nothing. I just wish that something felt less like nothing.
All the ways iOS 18 lets you customize your iPhone
With iOS 18 on the way, customization is in at Apple.
Control of the Control Center
iOS 18’s customization MVP
While the home screen may have been the flashier update coming to iOS 18 in the realm of customization, I would say the true main event is within the Control Center. The Control Center has always been a little customizable, but it’s never robust or simple. iOS 18 is finally going to allow users to customize the Control Center from the Control Center, while also allowing for a larger range of what can be changed. Rather than just adding or removing buttons, it seems we’ll soon be able to fully customize the Control Center. More importantly, third-party controls are coming as well. Out of the customizations announced for iOS, this is absolutely the most significant change coming. After all, the Control Center is about control. The ability to add in useful controls and take out or move less important controls will make the Control Center all the more useful.
This also comes alongside the ability to change the corner controls on the iPhone’s lock screen. Combined with the action button of the iPhone 15 Pro, this actually gives an impressive range of customizable quick actions to iPhone users. It also eliminates the ever persistent issues of accidentally opening your camera or turning on your flashlight while pulling your phone out of your pocket. Though it may now just be replaced by accidentally opening Snapchat.
While aesthetic differences offered by the home screen changes are nice, they pale in comparison to Apple finally trusting us to know what we’d like to use our iPhone for. The ability to fully customize the Control Center as well as the corner controls on your lock screen will bring a huge change to the actual usefulness of either feature. While it may not be as flashy or exciting, it is undeniably much more significant than any home screen customizations Apple has brought to the table this year.
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In-app customizations
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One of the final, broader updates to iOS 18 in terms of customization was to various individual apps. The Messages and Photos apps are both receiving sizable additions, with Photos in particular having been entirely redesigned. While neither is exactly groundbreaking, both do offer great new features. But, this isn’t really an area Apple has been as far behind the times on. At least not compared to home screen customization.
While the home screen will probably remain as the attention thief in terms of customization coming to iOS 18, the customization features coming to certain apps are worth praising. Between customizations coming to the redesigned Photos app, new messaging options for a little more flair, and custom walking routes in Apple Maps, there’s actually quite a bit of customization peppered around the default Apple suite of apps.
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Hopefully just the beginning
If Apple keeps this up, the iPhone can finally move past its most basic flaws
While WWDC may have been haunted by the specter of AI, the changes coming to iOS 18 offer another interesting insight into the potential future of the iPhone. These very fundamental customization features that the iPhone has missed for so long show signs of Apple maybe finally trusting users to make their iPhone look how they want it to look. This change isn’t significant on its own, but could be very significant if it signals the start of Apple allowing more user freedom to customize their iPhone experience.
Perhaps future iOS updates could give just a little more freedom to customize the iPhone experience with truly custom icons, icon shapes, or expandable rows and other features that have been Android staples for years. While Apple could very well stop at giving users the option to use dark or colorful icons and call it a day, they don’t have to. And hopefully, they don’t.
