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Sources: iOS 18 Lets Apps Be Placed Anywhere on Home Screen Grid

dumastudetto said:
Siri is already crazy good. It’s incredible how much it can do for us today.
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Yesterday I asked Siri to put an item on my grocery list and it started recording an activity in Strava.

I use Siri occasionally, mostly just to see how it performs (as you can guess I'm not impressed).
The only thing I can get it to do reliably is start a phone call to my partner.
 
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wanha said:
I often think about all the incredibly talented, intelligent and knowledgable people that inhabit these forums - the developers, designers, and those who are just into Apple - and it makes me sad that instead of having intelligent conversation and learning from each other's wealth of experience and different perspectives, all we seem to be able to produce is cynicism anymore (with precious few exceptions to the contrary)

It's one thing to be critical. It's a whole other thing to be cynical.

The whole thing just makes me sad when I think of what this forum could be.
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Well, maybe the cynicism wouldn't be so widespread if Apple hadn't been stalling on innovation and cutting value/$ ever since it became king of profits per smartphone sold.

This is, in part, due to Apple locking its users into its walled garden and deliberately making it difficult and costly to integrate devices from other brands into the Apple ecosystem, or using Apple products with devices from other brands. And then equally costly just to upgrade to what can be considered a contemporary smartphone if you stay with Apple.

Tim Cook knows exactly what he's doing. And he won't stop until everyone and your mom uses an iPhone, literally.

Thankfully, the EU and DOJ are now slowly waking up and realising why the tech industry is so unfairly dominated by a few giant corporations.

Apple, among others, has been deserving of a good regulatory spanking for a while.

Monopolies make consumers cynical. It's the only possible consequence.
 
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MacRumors said:


iOS 18 will give iPhone users greater control over Home Screen app icon arrangement, according to sources familiar with the matter.


iPhone-Home-Screen-Gradient.jpg


Home Screen on iOS 17​

While app icons will likely remain locked to an invisible grid system on the Home Screen, to ensure there is some uniformity, our sources say that users will be able to arrange icons more freely on iOS 18. For example, we expect that the update will introduce the ability to create blank spaces, rows, and columns between app icons.

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman was first to report that the iPhone would get a "more customizable" Home Screen starting with iOS 18. It is already possible to customize the Home Screen and create blank app icons with apps such as Shortcuts and Widgetsmith, but Apple's own personalization options will be more convenient and official.

iPhone users have already been able to customize the Lock Screen since iOS 16, and we expect the Home Screen to receive similar treatment with iOS 18. The update will introduce additional customization options for the Home Screen, according to our sources, and this could result in the biggest Home Screen revamp in several years.

Apple will announce iOS 18 at its annual developers conference WWDC in June. Other features and changes rumored for the update include new generative AI functionality for Siri and multiple apps, RCS support in the Messages app for improved messaging between iPhones and Android devices, design changes, and more.

Article Link: Sources: iOS 18 Lets Users Customize Layout of Home Screen App Icons
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Resizing apps on the Home Screen . app into a small, medium, large widget without having to go into the widget window
 
wanha said:
I often think about all the incredibly talented, intelligent and knowledgable people that inhabit these forums - the developers, designers, and those who are just into Apple - and it makes me sad that instead of having intelligent conversation and learning from each other's wealth of experience and different perspectives, all we seem to be able to produce is cynicism anymore (with precious few exceptions to the contrary)

It's one thing to be critical. It's a whole other thing to be cynical.

The whole thing just makes me sad when I think of what this forum could be.
Click to expand...
I for one enjoy a healthy dose of cynicism. Sure, the internet was a more constructive and helpful place in the early nineties, but think of all the fun we had by trolling peole anonymously.
 
Still trying to figure out why this is groundbreaking. Once I saw the name Gurman I assumed it was a nothing burger. But really, it takes iOS 18 to do what others have been doing for years?
 
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MacRumors said:
While app icons will likely remain locked to an invisible grid system on the Home Screen, to ensure there is some uniformity, our sources say that users will be able to arrange icons more freely on iOS 18.
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So boring. Make it so I can change the density of the grid, nickname/rename apps, change app icons, theme the icon colors, show larger folders on screen, create nested folders, color folders, etc. The slow drip of "customizable" is just painful to watch. Be bold, Apple.

And what I have been asking for since iOS 14: fix App Library. Why are the category groupings on App Library still so bad? I have bill pay apps and financial apps in Utilities, Productivity & Finance, and Information & Reading. I have bluetooth utilities in Entertainment. It's a mess. Let me make my own categories and move apps around. And give me a toggle for alpha-sort to be the default instead of an additional swipe. Maybe with an updated look to be more aligned with WatchOS. This feature felt unfinished at launch and has not improved at all. What I would really like is something like Niagra Launcher on Android. Also, with an alpha-sort, make it so I can swipe across the icons for contextual menus rather than longpress.
 
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ApplesAreSweet&Sour said:
Well, maybe the cynicism wouldn't be so widespread if Apple hadn't been stalling on innovation and cutting value/$ ever since it became king of profits per smartphone sold.

This is, in part, due to Apple locking its users into its walled garden and deliberately making it difficult and costly to integrate devices from other brands into the Apple ecosystem, or using Apple products with devices from other brands. And then equally costly just to upgrade to what can be considered a contemporary smartphone if you stay with Apple.

Tim Cook knows exactly what he's doing. And he won't stop until everyone and your mom uses an iPhone, literally.

Thankfully, the EU and DOJ are now slowly waking up and realising why the tech industry is so unfairly dominated by a few giant corporations.

Apple, among others, has been deserving of a good regulatory spanking for a while.

Monopolies make consumers cynical. It's the only possible consequence.
Click to expand...
Someone blamed Tim Cook, everyone take a drink.

Ever since Steve Jobs, Apple’s mantra has always been that since they control the hardware and software, using only Apple products works best. It’s weird that people have forgotten this.

And yes, every CEO wont be happy until everyone and their Mom uses their product. Why do you think that Google pays Apple billions so that everyone and their Mom has it for the default Search Engine.
 
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Pretty nice to be able to customize the layout.
I know apple devices are all about consistency, but I feel we'd appreciate a little more control when it comes to customize the look of our devices.
 
2007: iOS released to the world
2024: iOS lets us customize layout of Home Screen app icons -rumor-
I sometimes think these fellows found the secret to eternal life. That would explain their timings. Shame I'm just a mortal man doomed to die in a few decades max.
 
I'd really like to see the live tiles UI that was in Windows Mobile 10. Honestly, it was fantastic and I'd still be using it if Microsoft hadn't s**t their mobile bed.
 
Victor Mortimer said:
I don't care about icons on the bottom. I just want moving them around to be less annoying.

The big things I want are:

1. NORMAL SOFTWARE INSTALLATION. I want to be able to go to a web page, download an app, and install it. These things are computers, they should act like it. No more having to go through the stupid app store.

2. Make it not fugly. iOS 6 was beautiful, 7 and up are steaming garbage.
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Just wait another 17 years...
 
I'm so confused to say that but this is revolution for iOS. This is so tempting for me on android it made me switch twice and use 3 different android phones instead of iphone as daily driver.

I so strongly hope I will be able to swipe up to show apps list on iOS 19 🥲
 
Sounds like a terrible way to offer customization. And they’ll probably rise the price of the hardware again this year for that privilege.
 
I don't usually post this but WTF took them so long. Who could not figure out that letting users put the icons where they want them and then (given the advantages muscle memory provides) keep them there would be a thing? This should have been a v1.0 feature.
 
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Would love this so much. It's one of the Android features have always been jealous of, since they allow so much customization vs Apple to Home Screens. Rather than a list of icons on Android, it's more like a control center where you can control things from the screen and gets lot of data at glance. Apple has Widgets, however they are massive. So when you may want to just see one small data point, you wouldn't want to take up a large portion of the home screen. I doubt we will get anywhere near the customization of Android, but anything closer to that will be a great improvement as long as developers update their apps to take advantage of it, which might be some time for many.
 
Maybe the largest iPhone OS update of all time! Generative AI... brought to you by the Google Gemini app. And the home screen? L-shaped widgets
 
munpip214 said:
Unfortunately, due to this innovative, Home Screen layout customization, Siri will get the back burner…again.
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Unless you've been living under a rock, it's been well known that sources are saying that Apple is working AI (which they'll just likely refer to as transformer models) into Siri and as of more recently, they'll be working with Google who has Gemini
 
It's 2024, and the operating system of the public's primary means of computing has finally almost caught up to features of Windows 3.1 or Windows 95. Wow, that was 30 years ago!

Now if you could change your icons or theme your appearance without A) following complex multi-stop procedures involving shortcuts, or B) paying a subscription plan to some shady app, then we can proceed to Windows 98 equivalence of user friendliness.

Should we be impressed by the world's first trillion dollar company, or look back at computing history and wonder why things have actually digressed?
 
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