iOS 18: Add a Tint to Your iPhone Home Screen Icons

[MacRumors]

Apple in iOS 18 has made a wealth of customization options available for your iPhone Home Screen, one of which is the ability to add a tint to your app icons.

Essentially, the tint feature offers a unique way to customize your device's appearance by changing the color of all your icons at once. Unlike individual icon customization, tinting affects every icon on your app pages, Home Screen, and App Library, creating a unified look across your entire interface.

Tinting works by first desaturating all icons and then applying a single color overlay. This process results in a monochromatic appearance, which means you'll lose the original colors of your app icons and widgets, but what you gain is a more cohesive look. It's a powerful tool for creating a coordinated, stylish interface that reflects your personal taste, so be sure to experiment with it.

To choose a tint color, you can also use an eyedropper tool to select a shade from your wallpaper, or manually adjust hue and saturation using two slider bars. This flexibility allows you to perfectly match your icons to your background or create a contrasting color scheme.

Lastly, it's important to remember that the tint setting is universal. You can't apply different tints to different app pages or sections of your device. Whatever color you choose will be applied everywhere icons appear. Here's how to tint your icons in iOS 18:

1. Long press a space on your Home Screen.
2. Tap Edit in the top-right corner.
3. Tap Customize.
4. Select the Tinted option.
5. Adjust the sliders to change the tint. Note that you can also use the eyedropper icon to select a hue from a region of your wallpaper.
6. Tap anywhere outside of the Customize panel to finish.

The tint feature is in addition to a new Dark mode option for your app icons in iOS 18, which you can learn more about by checking out our dedicated how-to.

Article Link: iOS 18: Add a Tint to Your iPhone Home Screen Icons

 

[SouthBronx187]

Eye bleed 2009

 

[Villarrealadrian]

I think this doesnt add anythig to the iphone, would have been better to have a firewall

 

[madmin]

I'd have preferred it if Apple made something less all inclusive. For example, in Affinity Photo you can add a layer effect but then erase areas where you don't want the effect to apply. Something like that would've been far more useful and flexible imho.

 

[Jonas Danielsson]

This was cool on android 2013 with all different Home Screen, maybe it fits all thoose pc computers with led all over the case and motherboard

 

[WarmWinterHat]

Not using the beta... Can you make the icons grayscale? It doesn't look like black and white is available based on the color silder.

 

[Lioness~]

I like it, especially the red and yellow, at least now.
Good Apple, keep it coming.
In the beginning of news I pick it up, then I forget it all 😂

 

[sameasalways]

All the good ideas have left the building it seems.

 

[DaniTheFox]

Ugly as hell.

Edit: I am running iOS Beta 18 and I have already dicovert it. But when I see this 5 tint next to it in the picture above, I am glad I did not turn it on.

 

[magicschoolbus]

This looks like a bad myspace page

 

[MilaM]

Apple users like to complain about the customizability of Android and how ugly it is. While I'm definitely tired of iOS aesthetics by now, this feature feels like a step in the wrong direction.

 

[Rychiar]

Apple users like to complain about the customizability of Android and how ugly it is. While I'm definitely tired of iOS aesthetics by now, this feature feels like a step in the wrong direction.

monochrome looks good to me 🤷‍♂️

 

[MilaM]

monochrome looks good to me 🤷‍♂️

Maybe there are some nice tint settings. But the ones I have seen so far are quite ugly.

I think you need custom icon sets to make this work. Otherwise, meh.

 

[hagar]

Ugly as hell.

I can’t believe they allowed such hideous project to move forward.

I don’t want to be that guy, but no way Steve Jobs would have ever allowed such customisation and deviation from the default Apple experience and intended aesthetics.

And that’s coming from someone who still finds the default icons to be hideous as hell 10 years after iOS 6.

 

[0x4d]

No one asked for this and it looks like Android Honeycomb from 2011.

 

[Apple Mac Daz]

It’s looks total fubar, dark icons look fab but with the normal tint

 

[coffeemilktea]

All these new customization options are so excellent..... at making me appreciate how good the default icons and color schemes look. 🤪

 

[JuicyGoomba]

This looks like those awful early Android skins back when they were playing catch up to Apple.

Looks like we've come full circle.

Who'd have thought that Google of all corporations would take Apple's place as the leaders of mainstream hardware and software design?

I've loved Apple's build quality for years and software has always been tasteful. But these days it feels like they're in dire need of a refresh. iOS 7 was a long time ago and we haven't really come very far since.

Hate on Google all you want for constantly changing things and killing their experiments, but maybe that's why they're now ahead of Apple through.... experimentation? It's also easy to hate on them for Chromium taking over the world but again, why is Safari so far behind?

After using a Pixel 9 running the latest Android 15 beta, I can confidently say that build quality is easily level with Apple now, and Android 15 focuses on nipping and tucking all the remaining ugly bits of Android with nicer animations and forcing older ugly apps to play nice with gestures.

Competition is a good thing and as much as I generally dislike Google, more for their business practices than their products, I really hope the Pixel line eats into more of Apple's smartphone share and pushes them to steal "invent" more Android features while creating their own for Android OEMs to "borrow".

Funnily enough outside of a few irellevant Android OEMs, no one has cared to take the whole "dynamic island" gimmick on board. That's a very good measurement of how far Apple's "innovation" has fallen off of it's perch.

 

[mcilwraith]

is a black and white combo possible? can someone show it? then im in!!

 

[mcilwraith]

found this online. not bad!

 

[BanjoDudeAhoy]

I’m happy that the people who wanted something like this now get it. But at the same time I can’t help thinking it looks like a cheap third party launcher for Android.

Guess I’ll stick with the current iOS version then 🙃

 

[jason4427]

Not using the beta... Can you make the icons grayscale? It doesn't look like black and white is available based on the color silder.

Yes. They can be black and white.

 

[bluespider]

Don’t get me wrong, I love Apple. I have an M1 & M4 ipad sitting right here a MacBook for work and a MacBook for home. Every TV has an Apple Tv hooked up.. i have homepod minis, etc etc etc.. but i just can’t get past the state of things that we are touting tinting icons and home screens as a new great feature, while also being sooo giddy about a native calculator app on our iPads.. This year just feels like a filler year, am I wrong? Where is the true innovation, taking our stuff to the next level? We now have over powered hardware with software that just feels stuck in the past.

It used to be that owning an apple product was something special and kind of ahead of everything else, it is really now starting to just feel like a brand. I honestly don’t see any of the others doing anything great, new and exciting either and to be honest, i don’t even know what that would look like. It just feels like we’ve hit a rut an it’s just the same old thing with a new shiny coat of paint.

 

[jason4427]

I’m happy that the people who wanted something like this now get it. But at the same time I can’t help thinking it looks like a cheap third party launcher for Android.

Guess I’ll stick with the current iOS version then 🙃

You can upgrade without using that feature.

 

[NapZzz]

It's ugly, not at all like Apple's style.