Customise Home Screen options seem inconsistent to me

[Bobajobbob]

Is it just me or are the Customise options unclear and inconsistent?

I’ve been using them since their introduction and still now in iOS26 they don’t make sense to my brain.

When you first open you have the icon colour options and then top left there is a toggle for light or dark wallpaper.

Then when I select dark icons I get a new option Always and Auto which seems to apply to the wallpaper side toggle. Does this mean always dark or auto meaning it changes depending on sunrise/set? I guess this doesn’t change the icon colours automatically too?

If I am correct above is this there a way to automatically change the icons from default to dark and the background from light to dark?

Maybe I’m just being stupid but it just doesn’t make sense to me and that before we get on to the transparent options.

 

[BigBlur]

When you first open you have the icon colour options and then top left there is a toggle for light or dark wallpaper.

Just to be clear, that sun icon doesn't toggle between the light and dark wallpapers. It just makes the current wallpaper dimmer. One could have the light wallpaper set, but have it dimmed so that it looks a little better when using dark icons.

Then when I select dark icons I get a new option Always and Auto which seems to apply to the wallpaper side toggle. Does this mean always dark or auto meaning it changes depending on sunrise/set? I guess this doesn’t change the icon colours automatically too?

The 'Auto' setting here doesn't have anything to do with sunrise/sunset, at least not directly. It also doesn't have anything to do with the sun icon or the dimness of the wallpaper. The 'Auto' setting just ties the color of the icons to the Appearance setting (Light/Dark Mode). If you want the icons to change automatically when Light/Dark mode is changed, you need to use 'Auto'. Furthermore, if you want the icons to change automatically with sunrise/sunset, then you need to have 'Automatic' toggled on for the Appearance setting as well. The same goes for the wallpaper. If you want that to change along with Light/Dark Mode, make sure the wallpaper setting is set to 'Automatic'.

 

[Bobajobbob]

Many thanks for explanation. I’ve owned every iPhone and developed GUIs for 15 years and still couldn’t intuitively understand these options.

If I understand correctly now there are effectively 3 independent light/dark options in the OS.

Appearance - changes the main OS colours like a theme from light to dark.

Icon colours - default light icons or dark equivalent

Home Screen background brightness

In the Customise screen you can’t control the OS wide Appearance. Only the icons and background brightness and how they interact with the selected Appearance settings.

Maybe I’m just being stupid but I can’t help but think this could be clearer. What doesn’t help is when you toggle between auto and always which is the control for locking the icon colour to the appearance it effectively dims the background (and back) and the sun icon moves. This makes me think that the Auto/Always is controlling the background brightness not the relationship between icons and appearance.

Anyway I’m probably overthinking this but it has bugged me for ages so had to ask.