iOS 26: Tint App Icons to Match Your New iPhone 17 Color

[svish]

Nice to see this. Will change and keep it to orange to match my Orange 17 Pro Max. Eager to try out everything.

 

[antonrg]

Tested in on my pink 13 mini and it works well, but I won't be using it. It's not comfortable at all in terms of quickly locating the app you need.

 

[Hammerd]

While you’re at it, take the opportunity to change your default iphone system language to Russian*. Now as well as finding it difficult to see and differentiate your icons, you will now also not be able to read or understand anything on your screen. Brilliant!

*Apologies to Russian readers.

I once mistakenly set my phone to Chinese.
Phone restarted to apply the new language.
Could not read anything.
Had such a HARD time finding my way to switch back the setting to English

 

[eifelbube]

In iOS 26, Apple has added a new feature to its Home screen customization options that can match the color of your app icons with the actual color of your iPhone. The image below demonstrates the effect on the new iPhone 17 Pro in Cosmic Orange.

In iOS 18, Apple introduced Tinted app icons. The option applies a color filter over app icons, widgets, and even system UI elements, and with iOS 26, Apple has built on the theme with a new option that matches the color of your iPhone model.

iOS 26 knows the exact finish and color variant of your iPhone – Deep Blue, Sage, or Lavender, for example – because Apple has the device's SKU mapped at the firmware level (SKUs are a unique identifier that companies use to track and manage inventory). This allows iOS to identify your model and match a precise color profile.

This filter uses a base color taken from your iPhone's chassis color, then automatically adjusts brightness, saturation, and contrast so icons remain legible while still reflecting the hardware's tone. The following steps show you how it's done.

1. On your iPhone's Home screen, long press a space between app icons.
2. Tap Edit in the top-left corner, then select Customize from the popup menu.
3. Choose Tinted from the options panel that appears, then tap the far-left iPhone button under the two horizontal color sliders.
4. Select Light, Dark, or Auto, based on your preferences.

That's all there is to it. We've heard of the iPhone color matching option not working for some users who have updated older iPhone models to iOS 26. This is likely a bug that Apple will hopefully fix in a forthcoming update.

Match App Icons With Your iPhone's Case Color

If you press the button immediately right of the new iPhone color tint option, iOS 26 will even match app icon colors to your iPhone's case color. However, this only works with official Apple MagSafe cases that include a small NFC chip with color variant information.

Note that Tinted mode looks different in iOS 26 than it did in iOS 18. Rather than icons featuring a black background with colored graphics, icons adopt the full color that you select with white graphics in Light Mode. In ‌Dark Mode‌, backgrounds are a much darker shade of the color you choose, but aren't entirely black.

Article Link: iOS 26: Tint App Icons to Match Your New iPhone 17 Color

What does app icon tint look like on the black iPhone 17? 😊

 

[fzJNotIBOxgnbqejSeVCvJScL]

This feature still has never appealed to me.

I guess I’m older or something, but I really like the color and personality of different icons.

It also makes it very easy to differentiate them and quickly find them visually.

That just means you're NOT mentally ill. Unlike the morons who spends hundreds of hours ******** up their lagdroid phone. I believing the GNU/Loonix term is "ricing"

 

[lewchenko]

Makes icons harder to see. Looks fugly. What's the appeal?

 

[brownbird]

Idk what Apple was thinking wit this one. Did anyone ask for this? Seems like a VP needed to ship 5 features instead of 4, so someone checked a box for their boss.

 

[ErikGrim]

Heh, I had already tried to match my tint to Cosmic Orange. When I changed it to auto, it barely moved showing I was pretty spot on already.

 

[heathjw]

I did this on my new orange iPhone 17 Pro to test it with the icons matched to the color and it immediaetly rebooted my phone into recovery mode...still can't get it to reboot normally and don't want to lose a bunch of photos I took today that haven't uploaded to iCloud yet. Wut...

 

[heathjw]

I did this on my new orange iPhone 17 Pro to test it with the icons matched to the color and it immediately rebooted my phone into recovery mode...still can't get it to reboot normally and don't want to lose a bunch of photos I took today that haven't uploaded to iCloud yet. Wut...

 

[rosegoldoli]

possible to share a screenshot?

Tested in on my pink 13 mini and it works well, but I won't be using it. It's not comfortable at all in terms of quickly locating the app you need.

 

[antonrg]

possible to share a screenshot?

Sure, this is the folder of social networks that I use. It should give you an idea of the tone. I feel that it’s very close to the colour of the pink 13 mini. Well it was never really pink, more like pastel rose.

 

[rosegoldoli]

Sure, this is the folder of social networks that I use. It should give you an idea of the tone. I feel that it’s very close to the colour of the pink 13 mini. Well it was never really pink, more like pastel rose.

Thank you! I was curious

 

[nelcomm]

Apple: Now with best display ever, with best color reproduction.
Also Apple: Now you can make everything on screen use only one color, like in the good old days of monochromatic displays.

 

[attila]

The contrast is so bad with tinted icons as it is, let alone how they become less scannable.

I don't have to like it, I don't have to use it, so I don't like it, and won't use it.