Apple released iOS 18.2 on December 11, and this update brought many Apple Intelligence features, like Genmoji And Picture Playgroundon some iPhones. But when Apple released iOS 18 In September, it introduced a major and long-awaited change to your iPhone: the ability to personalize your home screen.
With iOS 18, you can remove app labels, change the color of app icons, organize apps on the screen in new ways, and much more. So you can add some holiday cheer to your iPhone by making your app icons green if your wallpaper is red or vice versa.
Learn more: iOS 18 brings these features to your iPhone
Here are all the ways you can personalize your home screen to make it as fun and unique as you are.
How to remove app labels in iOS 18
Tap Large to make your apps a little larger and remove app labels.
1. Long press on your background to enter jiggle mode, where your apps all shake.
2. Faucet To modify in the upper left corner of your screen.
3. Faucet Personalize.
4. Faucet Big in the new menu that appears at the bottom of your screen.
Your app icons will enlarge and the labels below them will disappear. This looks much cleaner to me and I don’t ever intend to show app labels again.
If you don’t like this, follow the steps above again but tap Little. The applications will return to their normal size and the labels will reappear.
How to change the color of your app icons
1. Long press on your background to enter jiggle mode, where your apps shake.
2. Faucet To modify in the upper left corner of your screen.
3. Faucet Personalize.
4. Tap the icon on the far right of the menu at the bottom of your screen titled Tinted.
This will bring up a gradient scale at the bottom of this menu and you can drag them until you get the right shade.
The icon on the far right shows what a tinted app would look like
You can also tap the eyedropper icon in the upper right corner of the menu to select a color for your background that more closely matches your icons. This way you don’t move the sliders and get frustrated because the colors don’t match – not that that happened to me, certainly not. This change will affect all your app icons.
You can also give some of your apps a darker background.
1. Long press on your background to enter jiggle mode, where your apps shake.
2. Faucet To modify in the upper left corner of your screen.
3. Faucet Personalize.
4. Tap the icon left of center in the menu at the bottom of your screen titled Dark.
Apple’s first-party apps, like Messages, Safari, and more, will now have an almost black background. This change applies to first-party Apple apps and some third-party apps, like the YouTube and Bluesky apps. Other third-party apps, like Instagram and Snapchat, remain unchanged.
Choosing Dark darkens your background, which could reduce the amount of power your iPhone uses and extend your battery life.
How to Darken Only Your Background
If you have tinted your app icons or like icons with a lighter appearance, you can darken your background to make the icons stand out. Here’s how.
1. Long press on a part of your background to enter jiggle mode, where your apps shake.
2. Faucet To modify in the upper left corner of your screen.
3. Faucet Personalize.
4. Tap the sun icon in the upper left corner of the new menu.
This will only darken your wallpaper and will not affect your app icons.
How to organize apps on your home screen
Organizing apps on your home screen is the same process as before. You can either enter jiggle mode by long-pressing an empty part of your background and then dragging apps where you want them to go, or tap and drag an app to a new location.
You can place all your apps at the bottom of your screen, have them frame your screen, or arrange them in any other pattern. Since I’m right-handed, I placed most of my apps on the right side of my screen so I could operate them easily without worrying about dropping my phone. This also makes it easy to ensure you see your background if it’s a photo of a loved one or pet.
The grid is still there, so you can’t place apps on top of each other or too close to each other. If you make your apps larger, there will be a significant gap between your dock at the bottom of your screen and the bottom-most row of the grid. It looks like it’s big enough to hold another app icon, but you can’t do that. I tried in vain.
To learn more about iOS 18, here’s what you need to know iOS 18.2 And iOS 18.1 and our iOS 18 Cheat Sheet. You can also check what might happen on your iPhone with iOS 18.3.
Watch this: Tips for creating in Apple’s Image Playground and Genmoji
