you've probably seen some of the
beautiful custom iPhone home screens
that go viral on social media after all
you open your phone and look at your
home screen dozens if not hundreds of
times every day so a personal home
screen that matches your aesthetic can
bring a little spark of joy to your
daily life I'm going to show you the new
features that are upcoming in iOS 18 how
you can go above and beyond with custom
icons made with shortcuts and how you
can top off your look with widgets I've
scoured the internet mostly Reddit for
the finest
examples iOS 18 which is available now
as a developer beta if you're so daring
opens up loads of customization options
for one you can switch from light icons
to dark icons or to tinted icons which
adopt any color of your
choosing however bear in mind that the
tinted icons still use dark back grounds
which means that these will work best if
you have a similar dark Moody wallpaper
with a strong accent color if you're
already running iOS 18 just tap and hold
on the home screen to enter jiggle mode
tap edit in the upper left then tap
customize you can pick between automatic
light dark or tinted and from here you
can use the sliders to find a color you
want or you can use the eyedropper tool
on the right to pick a specific color
out of your wallpaper
and if you want you can also tap the sun
button on the left to darken your
wallpaper a little more also if you want
a good unobstructed view of your
wallpaper you can move the apps and
folders to the bottom of the screen for
the first time giving you easy access
with one hand so Apple's built-in
options are really easy to set up but
they are somewhat limited the dark
tinted icons will Clash if you want a
lighter color scheme if you want pastel
colors like light pink lavender or aqua
blue you're going to need to go the next
level and make custom icons ever since
these custom home screens first went
viral in 2020 loads of people have been
making custom icon packs for the iPhone
the website I go to is called icons8.com
they have loads of different theme packs
you just tap on one and then you can
search for the icons you need like
YouTube Instagram Facebook you'll see
the results and it's really easy to add
these to your photo Library custom icons
don't always need to be about changing
the color scheme this one for example is
just as colorful as Apple's own but it
changes the aesthetic to one with gentle
colors and soft shadows and this one
goes in the complete opposite direction
styled like Windows 95 I'm actually
using custom icons on my personal home
screen but in a little more of a subtle
way I'm using the regular iOS 18 dark
mode icons because I still like having
the color
differentiation but for the three
thirdparty apps on my home screen
SnapChat Mona and net newswire they
obviously haven't been updated for iOS
18 yet since it was just announced as a
beta like two weeks ago so I made my own
custom icons to fit in with Apple's dark
color scheme to swap out the stock icons
for your custom ones here's what you
need to do you'll open the shortcuts app
tap the plus and the upper right corner
then you'll tap open app and you'll
select the app that you want to open
that's all the shortcut has to do now
you'll tap the share button in the
bottom toolbar and tap add to home
screen now here comes the important part
you'll type in the label you want to
give it and then you'll tap the icon on
the left and tap choose from photos here
you actually pick the custom icon you
want to use and then you tap add in the
upper right now you have your custom app
launcher on the home screen to remove
the old one just tap and hold on an icon
tap remove app and then remove from home
screen and you can move the new icon in
its place you'll have to repeat this
process for every custom icon you want
to make which can be annoying if you
have a lot of icons in your home screen
but the end results will be worth it now
there is one thing to note about this
kind of setup whereas Apple's built-in
features will change the colors of your
app icons across the system this feature
will only change them on the home screen
the icons will be unaffected in their
appearance in the app Library that's
because you're not really changing the
icons you're just creating a new icon
for the home screen now this
customization hack does come with two
unfortunate side effects first you won't
see any notification badges on the icon
anymore and secondly every time you tap
on the icon you'll see an annoying
Banner on the top of the screen
reminding you that you just ran a
shortcut which unfortunately cannot be
turned off even in iOS 18 finally you
can enhance the look of your home screen
with custom widgets Apple's built-in
widgets are very functional and
utilitarian but not necessarily
beautiful using the tinted color scheme
they'll adopt whatever colors you use
for your app icons but the results still
may not look ideal using an app like the
viral sensation widget Smith you can
combine all of these three tips together
to really elevate your aesthetic the sky
is the limit you can add a calendar
widget Weather Widget countdown widget
or a photo widget that does nothing
except look good and with the plethora
of customization options for fonts and
colors you will be able to match any
style you want Steven hacket the
managing director of widget Smith said
to me over email with new tools coming
in iOS 18 people will be able to more
easily create their own unique aesthetic
widget Smith is updated very regularly
to adopt all the latest IOS features
like widget interactivity ity and with
new color schemes every few months to
inspire you Steven also told me that
when users update to iOS 18 this fall
they'll be able to customize control
center with thirdparty widgets made with
Widget Smith as well you can download it
from the App Store it's available with a
subscription for $1.99 a month or $1
199.99 a year to see even more of what's
possible I recommend you subscribe to
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remember to like And subscribe I'm D
Griffin Jones with Cult of Mac
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