Dragging app icons around home screen pages sometimes rearranges and sometimes not!

[jimhoyle]

I have a couple of home screen pages on my iPhone 11 Pro, using iOS 14. Although, I think this exact same behavior happened on iOS 13 and also on iPhone 6. Some of the pages are full of app icons, some of the pages have empty space in the end. Note that these half-full pages are not the last pages but random pages (like page 2, 5 and 6 out of 10).

When I'm on a full page and drag an app icon to the next page, sometimes it automatically returns the first icon from the next page to the current one. In other words, it forces auto-rearrange so that the page must remain full. Impossible to move one or more apps out of the page without repopulating back to a full page.

However, I do have half-full pages and in those pages it does NOT force this auto-populate.

How do I disable the auto-populate altogether? It's very frustrating and confusing, I don't want that.

 

[mpavilion]

Dragging app icons around is so maddening and terrible it makes me want to throw down my iPhone in frustration. It almost seems to have gotten worse with iOS 14.

 

[tops2]

A ”none solution” for me is last week, I gave up trying to keep my apps ordered the way I wanted. I have the option of apps automatically going to App Library and not on Home Screen. I use spotlight search for apps I remember the name. I use the App Library for all others.

Dragging apps icons is extremely maddening to me too. And having widgets makes it so much worse for me..between widgets not stacking sometimes and really shifting things around. That’s why I ended up with just as few pages and really reduce the apps on my screen.

My main screen has 10 apps (some I’m waiting for widget update so I can hide it), a small stacked widget (basically shortcuts to Spark mail, Calendars 5 and clock), and Siri auto suggested apps. My second page are apps my kids have used so they can find it easily. I placed a few more widgets in the “today view“ as not to have too many home pages to side swipe through.

I’ll see how well it works, but I like it so far.

The main problems so far is muscle memory and having to remember exact names (and spellings) of apps cause I use spotlight search a lot more to open apps now..

 

[firedept]

I do not believe there is a way to stop this. I am not a fan of moving apps around either. It used to be so simple a few years back when you could do it through iTunes. I dread it now when I add a new app and need to relocate it.

 

[jimhoyle]

Yes, it would be easy/important to improve the home screen management. Certainly we need a desktop computer manager for that, to speed up the process 100-fold. Yes, very annoying when you don't remember the spelling for an app (when searching for it). Also this has been missing since iPhone 1: ability to jump to the page where app is after searching. Yes it gives the folder name (if any), but that's not the solution! It should jump and highlight, of course.

For the auto-rearrange last icons per page: I guess it's a bug then? Quite a blatant bug. Bug, because on some pages it rearranges and some not.

 

[itsmilo]

It gets even worse with moving around widgets. Not only does it obviously move some icons to the second page if there wasn’t enough space on the screen but it also destroys the order on the second page. I even had it happen that iOS erased all my folders and threw all apps on the Home Screen at random. I learned my lesson and took a screenshot of my arrangement now. It shouldn’t be this way.
Another one that has been happening for like always ... try moving the app or folder in the lower right corner. It always ends up throwing it on the second page

 

[Indigo212]

Home Screen management is just stupid and horrible! Whoever is responsible for this stupidity needs to be fired ASAP!

 

[Baldilocks]

It's like they didn't even pick up an Android phone and see how it should work...