Not quite.. iOS is still updated regularly, and not just for 2 years.
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Gurman: iOS 18 Will Allow Users to Recolor App Icons and Place Them Anywhere
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it’s useful for sure, and makes sense intuitively—I find it can be overwhelming in the age of huge-screen iPhones. if home screens are the modern desktop (…that’s a funny statement), it feels like iOS has gotten to a Windows 98/XP level of desktop bloat. it’d be nice to have a home screen with ~10 apps I check daily (hourly, even) on which I can choose where the free space is. strictly top-to-bottom/left-to-right isn’t looking realistically at what consumers might want going forward, esp. given the biggest hit out of Shortcuts for the average consumer was “oh you can customize app icons now”
Maybe they’re doing this in preparation for next year’s iPhone 17 “Android Edition” because you can’t just have a phone that looks Android, you need the home screen to look that way too.
I'm weird. I've always kept the first screen completely blank for the wallpaper.
On one hand, hopefully. There are developers who'll have good reason for not allowing their app icons changed in any way, i.e. because it's a registered trademark etc. Also imagine there are a bunch of app icons that could be rendered unrecognizable.
On the other... a hit-and-miss of icons which can/cannot be recolored isn't the best UX. After about the third "You can't change this one" I'd give up on it.
Everyone has their own approach. I’m fine with how mine is. First page looks like the image below and the rest is all in the searchable App Library. I’m not sure I personally need any more customization than that.
I've always wanted a 5- or 6-column home screen with smaller app icons. Just a personal preference left over from my jailbreaking days.
Gurman reports it so obviously it’s false. No change to icons it seems.
If that means more flexible app icon placement, then bring it on.
Maybe the new color change option is limited to app folders? If it is for the app icon itself, then maybe developers have the option to opt in or disable the color change option for users to maintain their brand identity as they want it to be. I don’t think Meta would want users to change the Facebook app icon color from its signature blue color to pink or yellow.
The daft thing is developers can already allow it by having versions of icons in different colours or even different designs. No one does because it’s not something that most developers want as they have a brand and users aren’t asking for this.
I have 8 folders in total (all apps are in folders). Four are in the dock, the other four right above the dock. That’s only possible because I have 5 rows of blank spaces covering the top five rows. I want all my folders to be in my thumb’s reach. See the benefit now?
FWIW, Google is now offering 7 years of updates. This is approx what Apple does, but I don't think I've seen it formalized.
In a dream world, this would make Apple up their game even more - to stay the best in this area.
If this comes to fruition they're clearly going to bring over the tvOS/visionOS icon system where developers can create app icons based on 2 to 3 layers. They can provide a background image and a glyph, so users can easily switch out the background color. If this is desirable is another question, though. How many apps want to participate in this and throw their brand colors out of the window?
Hopefully folders get a through sorting out. They’ve been identical since iOS 7 and having to thumb through pages of apps in a little square is such a poor UI especially with today’s larger phone screens.
Between forcing usb c, demanding rcs, truing to break open the Os and now this we are definitely headed there slowly but surely.
The recolouring of icons will save me a lot of time trying to balance my home screen. Thanks Apple.
You have to wonder why someone would want to just look at the screen of their phone, doing nothing but looking at the apps/widgets? It’s not like you can have a window open on your iPhone, taking up just a small portion of the screen, while being able to see the rest of your home screen layout. It’s ultimately some people asking for something they think they want or need, without their thinking through the actual usage of such a feature.
My vaper has USB-C charging, it's not Android exclusive. RCS is just an addition, and not a replacement for iMessages - and I still need to see an alternative App Marketplace, in addition to AltStore which contains 2 apps, where one app is already in the App Store. There is still a long way to go.
just please let Siri have other responses other than st*pid "UhHuh......" and then never confirms any commands.
Personally, I love the Siri suggestions widget that populates my most used 8 apps on the Home Screen, that I don’t already have on my home screen, which consists of 8 other apps, plus the 4 at the bottom. For the most part, the Siri suggestions are spot on for what I want to use during a given time, even if there are one or two apps that are a good guess, but not what I needed. For example, yesterday I was on a 50 mile bicycle ride and one of the suggestions was the GasBuddy app, which clearly wasn’t the right guess.
Hum… hum… icons normally show a color and a shape of a brand. Is Apple allowing users to destroy a brand?
*sigh*
Just doesn’t seem like a good use of my time. If it does to you, by all means, knock yourself out.
Just doesn’t seem like a good use of my time. If it does to you, by all means, knock yourself out.