iOS 18: 10 New Home Screen and Lock Screen Features

[Burnincoco]

I can’t believe so many people are proclaiming “finally!” when to me all these options look childish and out of place. I’ll stick with how my Home Screen has always looked like.

That's ok, you were always allowed to do that

 

[Mity]

Can you have more than 4 icons in one row? That seems like an obvious thing to include. On the Pro max models, the icons (and UI in the phone app) look comically large, almost like they're meant for people with visual impairments.

 

[Populus]

So, which apps do you have hidden?

In my case, a good candidate for that function would be the app Nice (Sex Tracker by Nice). It’s an app that, well, let’s you keep a register of your sexual life, alone or in company. It also allows you to specify what kind of intercourse you had, with which partner, and put it in a calendar view to have a better panoramic of your sexual life. It also allows you to track partners, possible STI risks on each one, and other details. Then, it elaborates statistics about your sexual activity.

Although it allows you to lock it using your biometrics (something that we’ll be able to do with all apps on iOS 18), I think it’s a good candidate to be hidden on your iOS device. But no one has access to mine anyways.

 

[wbeasley]

Can you have more than 4 icons in one row? That seems like an obvious thing to include. On the Pro max models, the icons (and UI in the phone app) look comically large, almost like they're meant for people with visual impairments.

Apart from being fairly insensitive to people who have visual impairments, you must really hate the icons and spacing on iPadOS...

 

[peneaux]

Those features were present in Android for a while.
In Android, I keep 8 apps in the front (and only) page and a weather widget. To find the other apps that I don’t use that often, you swipe bottom-up. It makes organization easier.

I really hate iOS widgets and App Library pages you can’t disable. You end up swiping left and right too often. 4 pages minimum.


I prefer Android (without Google) but iPhones are so ahead in hardware. And if like me, you prefer a small device, nothing comes close to the 13 mini.

 

[torontotim]

The best part (I hope) of the new OS ecosystem is I'll be able to do the tedious task of arranging my iOS icons while mirroring my iPhone on my MacBook. Doing it on the phone has been a PITA since you could arrange icons, create groups and have multiple pages on your home screen. The drag and drop from page to page sucks ballz and hopefully doing it with a mouse on the MacBook might make things faster and easier to arrange.

 

[kerr]

Apart from being fairly insensitive to people who have visual impairments, you must really hate the icons and spacing on iPadOS...

Apart from being fairly insensitive to people that like having display choices ...

 

[john123]

Icon Tints look cool! Back in the day I used jailbreak to get monochromatic icons!

This. Most of this stuff was available with jailbreaking a decade ago.

I know this will elicit the usual "Jailbreaking was bad because it prevents Apple from keeping you safe!" reaction, and I'm not wading into that old debate. However, it does tell you something about what a 3 trillion dollar company has — somewhat inexplicably, although I can theorize — decided not to do over all these years.

 

[svish]

Happy that more customisation is possible now.

 

[yabeweb]

Funny how reading about these "new" features in iOS 18 as a longtime Android user only shows how behind iOS has been for years. It's great for life long iOS users who have never been exposed to these features but it's just funny how these so-called "new" features get spun in the press as some kind of revelation when Apple is finally onboard with what the rest of the industry has been doing for years.

May be they advanced on more important aspects of the OS, it's good to see.customization, but I'd rather have a better is than pretty icons.

 

[sunapple]

Since iOS 7 I have been waiting for app icons that look good.

With the new customization option, sadly, it got worse.

 

[iHorseHead]

I can’t believe so many people are proclaiming “finally!” when to me all these options look childish and out of place. I’ll stick with how my Home Screen has always looked like.

Finally!
Because when people were saying that Android has such features people were like: "I don't need such options. It's for children" and now everybody's so happy that it's coming to the iOS. All of those features have been on Android for years.

 

[pdaholic]

In my case, a good candidate for that function would be the app Nice (Sex Tracker by Nice). It’s an app that, well, let’s you keep a register of your sexual life, alone or in company. It also allows you to specify what kind of intercourse you had, with which partner, and put it in a calendar view to have a better panoramic of your sexual life. It also allows you to track partners, possible STI risks on each one, and other details. Then, it elaborates statistics about your sexual activity.

Although it allows you to lock it using your biometrics (something that we’ll be able to do with all apps on iOS 18), I think it’s a good candidate to be hidden on your iOS device. But no one has access to mine anyways.

If I had this app I’d hide it because of how embarrassingly empty the calendar would be 😩

 

[LeLeon]

I think they should connect the Home Screen Customization and the Lock Screen Customization in some way. Its odd that they are located in different places in the System. We should be able to create a Lock Screen and the System suggests a Customized Home Screen with Tints and Icon Location and co based on the Wallpaper and maybe even Focus modes.

 

[LeLeon]

Can anyone confirm whether icons within folders can be placed anywhere, or do they still default to the top left?

top left, cant be placed anywhere in DB 2

 

[YankeeSR23]

I like that you can remove the bottom buttons on the Lock Screen. I have the action button for the flashlight and the swipe gesture still works for the camera app. So now my wallpaper is like the black iPod nano screen and all my text looks like it’s part of the iPod’s display.

 

[LeLeon]

I hate how android like it’s starting to look. I may just stay on iOS 17 for awhile with my 15 pm

I mean you dont have to use the Features. If you prefer the default look just dont use the features. It will look exactly the same. But you do you

 

[LeLeon]

I can’t believe so many people are proclaiming “finally!” when to me all these options look childish and out of place. I’ll stick with how my Home Screen has always looked like.

I mean no one forces you to change anything.

 

[return2sendai]

Coming to iPadOS 19.

 

[backstreetboy]

Funny how reading about these "new" features in iOS 18 as a longtime Android user only shows how behind iOS has been for years. It's great for life long iOS users who have never been exposed to these features but it's just funny how these so-called "new" features get spun in the press as some kind of revelation when Apple is finally onboard with what the rest of the industry has been doing for years.

Lol Google releases a half baked version usually.

 

[ds2000]

It'll be cool to see what people come up with. I have zero interest in this but always like the more creative results from members here

 

[maxolson]

Wish I could keep the icons the same size with no labels, but I guess it would be empty space.

I wish we could make the icons even smaller on the home screen so we could get an additional column of icons. Coming from Android they are comically large.

 

[adrianlondon]

I immediately went for the large-icon no-text option and thought it looked really cool. A few hours later, and I hated it.

Bigger icons just somehow look "wrong" to me. Made the phone look even more toy-like. So I switched it back.

The other issue is that I missed the text underneath the folder icons, as I have a few folders and they're hard to distinguish when there's no name under them.

I'm not sure what I'd actually prefer. Text under folders only? No text under the icons but them staying the same size? Folder icons that look like those in the App Library that I never use?

Right now, I'm just back to exactly how it was on iOS 17 🙂

I've replaced the Camera app icon on my lock-screen with another app though. I like that change.

Off topic for this thread, but I really like the iOS 18 control centre changes. It's still a bit buggy, but they'll fix that.

 

[Krizoitz]

Funny how reading about these "new" features in iOS 18 as a longtime Android user only shows how behind iOS has been for years. It's great for life long iOS users who have never been exposed to these features but it's just funny how these so-called "new" features get spun in the press as some kind of revelation when Apple is finally onboard with what the rest of the industry has been doing for years.

Android may be ahead in icon customization but iOS is ahead in stability, speed, security, privacy, you know the things that actually matter.

These cosmetic tweaks are nice to have, but nowhere near as important as the areas where iOS is superior.

I work with iOS and Android devices daily and never one has “oh boy the it’s me can be moved anywhere” made my job easier.

 

[wanha]

Funny how reading about these "new" features in iOS 18 as a longtime Android user only shows how behind iOS has been for years. It's great for life long iOS users who have never been exposed to these features but it's just funny how these so-called "new" features get spun in the press as some kind of revelation when Apple is finally onboard with what the rest of the industry has been doing for years.

iOS is behind Android in some things, just as the Android is behind iOS in others.

The reason these new features are heralded is because people love iOS and look forward to new ways to make it more useful and customizable. Just because someone else had the feature first doesn't mean people shouldn't excited by them or that Apple shouldn't add them.