It’s a sight we’re all familiar with: rows and columns of neatly arranged app icons. But what if it didn’t have to be that way? Apple is reportedly updating the iPhone’s home screen in iOS 18 to make it more customizable, according to MacRumors and Bloomberg.
We won’t know for sure until Apple announces iOS 18, which will likely happen on June 10 at its Worldwide Developers Conference. But if those reports prove accurate, the iPhone’s home screen could end up looking a little more like Android. MacRumors indicates that the update could bring more flexibility when it comes to how icons can be arranged on the home screen. For example, the report suggests that you’ll be able to leave blank spaces between icons and widgets.
Changing the home screen is a delicate job. Apple has to straddle the line between keeping it comfortable and familiar—we call it Home screen for a reason — while introducing new features and functionality.
But in the case of the home screen, change can be a good thing.
Read more: A US lawsuit against Apple raises questions about the future of iPhone and Android
The iPhone home screen has remained largely the same for years. The lock screen got a facelift in iOS 16 that allowed customization of fonts and added more depth to photos, giving them a 3D effect. The home screen deserves its own makeover.
Giving users the freedom to arrange app icons more freely may sound trivial. There are probably a lot of people out there who are happy with their neatly organized apps. But the option to put space between apps and widgets could open up new possibilities.
For one thing, it could put more emphasis on the background, and perhaps Apple could even design the new background options with that in mind. The option to place apps closer to the bottom of the screen could also be useful when using the phone with one hand. Availability mode already exists for this purpose. But simply positioning the app within arm’s reach might feel more natural.
In the near future, this kind of change would probably just make it easier to organize your apps. But what interests me most about a more personalized home screen is the idea behind it. A small change like this could give you the freedom to turn your home screen into whatever you want — whether it’s an app panel, a dashboard for your favorite widgets, or something in between.
Clearly, there is a need for more personalization on the iPhone home screen. iPhone users have come up with various workarounds to keep apps apart. This includes using third-party tools to create the appearance of blank spaces and saving web pages with transparent logos as home screen shortcuts.
Android users have had this luxury for a long time. On an Android device, you can drag and drop app icons anywhere on the home screen.
17 hidden iOS 17 features you should definitely know about
See all photos
I said earlier that the home screen hasn’t changed much over the years. While this is true at a fundamental level, it is an oversimplification. Apple has gradually expanded what the iPhone’s home screen can do in subtle but useful ways.
For example, in 2020, iOS 14 brought two important changes: home screen widgets and the app library. The former lets you pin useful information like weather and time to your home screen, while the latter makes it easier to clean up clutter by organizing apps into specific folders.
Then came Dynamic Island, which made it easy to track app activity — like your Uber ETA — from the home screen. While it’s not technically a home screen in the traditional sense, iOS 17 Standby mode can also be seen as an evolution of the iPhone’s default screen. Sleep mode essentially turns the iPhone into a miniature smart display to display items like the time, weather forecast, your calendar and more while the device is charging and in landscape mode.
Features like Dynamic Island and Standby mode lead me to think that big changes are in store for the home screen. While the ability to arrange apps more fluidly may not seem relevant to these features on the surface, it may similarly point to a future where the iPhone’s home screen becomes more than just a grid of apps.