We try not to make fun of Apple too much these days when they add features to iOS that have been on Android for years. Not only is it some kind of trick move, but Google and Android are certainly borrowing from the other side as well. However, every now and then we have to make exceptions when something so wild is on the horizon that you almost can’t believe it.
Apple is expected to unveil iOS 18 at its developer event in June, and rumors so far suggest it will be one of the biggest updates to the mobile platform ever. One of the key areas that is being talked about a lot right now is home screen customization, as it is an area where Apple lags behind Android.
While Apple finally allowed people to add widgets to their home screens in 2020 with iOS 14, they continued to impose the weirdest layouts on users pushing all the icons to the top of the page, filling each space in a row and sorting them before moving on to the next. In other words, you’ve never been able to simply add an icon to any particular spot on the home screen—Apple and iOS have always forced everything to be next to each other in row after row as they flow down each home screen page.
As far back as I can remember (up until this page started in 2009 with a Motorola DROID), Android allowed you to grab an icon and drop it to a specific location on any page and in any row or column. For many of us, that means an app rack on the home screen with another group of our most used apps right above it in the bottom rows of the home screen, because then we can easily get to those apps at the bottom of the screen. In iOS or on iPhone, some of your most used apps may be at the top of the home screen, forcing you to reach all the way to the top to open them. It’s bad UX design, that’s for sure.
In iOS 18, Apple is rumored to drop this forced sorting to the top of home screens. Apple allegedly (according to MacRumors) will allow iOS users to deploy apps anywhere on the home screens. There will still be a grille, as we have on all phones, but placing iPhones like we’ve done on Android for over a decade could soon become a thing.
It’s crazy to consider that sometimes the most fundamental ideas that existed on Android from day one never made it to the iPhone. And this is a big deal for iPhone users! Here are people asking for it in 2014 and 2015, but I imagine there are requests long before them. It’s the current headline in the iOS world, and the comments surrounding the idea are (rightly) Lacrdiac. This should have happened so long ago, but I’m still hoping Apple will tell us why they waited. Probably not, I just wish they would.