iOS 18: 10 New House Display and Lock Display Options
With iOS 18, Apple overhauled the House Display, introducing design adjustments that enable for extra customization and personalization. You possibly can put icons the place you need, change their dimension, and provides them new colours, plus you may disguise apps and swap out your Lock Display buttons.
This information highlights every little thing new coming to the iOS 18 House Display and Lock Display.
Rearranging Icons
With iOS 18, you may rearrange app icons and widgets in your House Display and app pages with area between them, offering a wealth of recent format choices.
Apple caught with a grid system so you may solely transfer app icons throughout the grid areas, however an icon will be positioned wherever within the grid with empty area round it. That sounds difficult, however with iOS 17, when you added a brand new app to your House Display, it could robotically go to the following open spot.
In iOS 18, you may select the place to place it. You possibly can have app icon-sized areas between apps, full empty rows, and full empty columns. You possibly can’t put icons and widgets in locations with uneven spacing due to the invisible grid limitation, so hold that in thoughts.
You possibly can put a single app in the course of a web page, have a row of apps on the prime and a row of apps on the backside, create a column of apps, and extra. Apple created this design to mean you can place apps and widgets round wallpapers and prepare them into extra helpful layouts.
Here is how one can transfer your icons:
- Lengthy press on the House Display or on an app web page to provoke wiggle mode.
- Transfer apps into the specified positions.
- Faucet on accomplished.
Enhance Icon Measurement
You can also make your app icons larger in iOS 18 by eradicating the app names. With app names in place, Apple wants area to show them, however eradicating them opens up a variety of space for a bigger icon and folder dimension. Altering the app dimension doesn’t change the variety of apps which can be seen, it merely removes textual content and makes use of up that vacant area.
With bigger icons, you continue to get a most of six icon rows with 4 icons every, the identical that you just’re restricted to when icon names are turned on. To vary icon dimension, comply with these steps:
- Lengthy press on the House Display or an app web page.
- Faucet on “Edit.”
- Faucet on “Customise.”
- Select Small to activate app names, or Giant to show them off.
Be aware that this setting is common, so you can not have small icons on one app web page and huge icons on a distinct app web page.
You possibly can change the scale of widgets instantly from the House Display with out having to enter the customization choices. Widgets now have a white rounded bar within the nook, which you’ll drag to make them bigger or smaller.
- Lengthy press on the House Display or an app web page to get into wiggle mode.
- Use a finger to resize the widget to be smaller or bigger.
You might be restricted to the minimal and most dimension out there with any given widget. For instance, the Battery widget will be the scale of 4 app icons, six horizontal app icons in two rows, or a sq. form that is 4 icons huge by 4 icons tall. Once you resize the Battery widget, you might be restricted to these dimension choices, however you do not want to enter the complete widget settings to vary the scale.
Widgets are nonetheless added to your House Display and app pages in the identical method, although a few of the labeling has shifted. Lengthy press and faucet on “Edit,” then select the “Add Widget” possibility. It is yet one more faucet than it was earlier than because of the new customization choices.
If an app has a widget, you can too lengthy press on its icon to see widget choices proper there, turning the app’s icon right into a widget as a substitute.
Apple added a brand new Well being widget in iOS 18 that exhibits data from the brand new Vitals characteristic that is each within the Well being app and on Apple Watch. It supplies an outline of day by day vitals or weekly vitals, plus there’s additionally a brand new widget for cycle monitoring.
Vitals aggregates data from the Apple Watch to supply a day by day readout of how your coronary heart fee, sleep patterns, respiration, and blood oxygen change from each day and week to week.
There’s a new Journal widget as properly, with choices that present a writing immediate you could faucet on to open up the app to reply. It’s also possible to choose a Streaks widget that retains observe of what number of days in a row you have used the Journal app.
For the brand new Coaching Load characteristic on Apple Watch, Apple has added a corresponding widget within the Health widget part.
Within the House widget part, there are new widgets for electrical energy utilization and electrical energy charges (a characteristic coming to pick customers in iOS 18 later this yr).
Darkish Mode Icons
Apple’s built-in apps have each Mild and Darkish coloration choices in iOS 18, which lets you change the colour of your icons when you may have Darkish Mode turned on. The Darkish icons are all redesigned with a black background moderately than a white or coloured background, which makes them mix in higher with the Darkish Mode setting.
You possibly can activate Darkish icons independently of getting Darkish Mode enabled, so you may go away Mild mode on whereas utilizing the Darkish icon possibility. It’s also possible to set icons to an computerized mode, which implies they’re going to change coloration relying on whether or not Darkish Mode or Mild Mode is lively.
Proper now, it is solely Apple’s apps which have a Darkish possibility, however third-party builders will presumably additionally have the ability to embody two coloration choices for his or her icons when iOS 18 launches.
To associate with the Darkish Mode icons, Apple additionally launched a toggle that makes your wallpaper darker. Here is how one can change your icon and wallpaper coloration:
- Lengthy press on the House Display or an app web page.
- Faucet on “Edit.”
- Faucet on “Customise.”
- Choose Computerized, Darkish, Mild, or Tinted, an possibility described under. That is additionally the interface used to vary app icon dimension, and darken your wallpaper (the solar icon).
The wallpaper possibility makes your chosen wallpaper a bit darker in coloration, dimming vibrant shades when enabled. Tapping toggles Mild and Darkish modes, with Mild being your customary wallpaper coloration.
Icon Tints
Along with selecting a Darkish Mode in your app icons, you may decide to place a tint over all of them, which is an aesthetic that is helpful if you wish to match a wallpaper.
You can’t change icon colours individually, and the tint adjustments the shade of all of the icons en masse. You should use an eyedropper to decide on a coloration out of your wallpaper, or you should use the 2 bars to tweak each hue and saturation. Tinting works with all icons as a result of it desaturates after which locations a coloration over the desaturated icon, so that you do lose particular person colours in app icons and widgets. It is a very monochromatic look.
As with icon dimension, this can be a common setting so you can not have completely different tints for various app pages. Tinting impacts not solely your app pages and House Display, but in addition the App Library. To vary an icon tint:
- Lengthy press on the House Display or an app web page.
- Faucet on “Edit.”
- Faucet on “Customise.”
- Choose Tinted and use the sliders to regulate the tint to your excellent coloration.
To show off a tint, comply with these similar steps after which select “Mild” or “Darkish” to get again to the usual app icon colours.
Hiding and Locking Apps
iOS 18 features a safety characteristic for locking apps and even hiding them solely out of your House Display and app pages. A locked app requires a Face ID or Contact ID scan to open, so if somebody is utilizing your unlocked iPhone, they nonetheless will not have the ability to open apps you have disabled.
Hiding an app does the identical factor as locking it, however goes a step additional and removes it from view solely. You may solely see it in a Hidden folder within the App Library, which additionally requires authentication to entry. Locked and Hidden apps don’t present up in searches on the iPhone, they don’t seem to be accessible by Siri with out authentication, and notifications and alerts like calls from the app are disabled, so that they’re solely personal with out authentication.
The choice to lock and conceal apps is helpful for when you want to hand your telephone over to somebody for viewing images, taking part in video games, or related conditions.
For a locked app, there isn’t any signal that it is locked till somebody makes an attempt to open it, at which level there is a Face ID or Contact ID authentication immediate. For hidden apps, they merely do not present up wherever besides the App Library.
Apps do present up in your App Retailer buy/obtain checklist, however they do not present up within the Settings app. Settings for hidden apps will be accessed in a separate “Hidden Apps” folder that does require authentication to open up. Find out how to lock or disguise an app:
- Lengthy press on the icon of the app that you just need to lock or disguise.
- Faucet on “Require Face ID.”
- If you wish to merely lock an app, faucet on “Require Face ID” once more. If you wish to disguise it, select “Disguise and Require Face ID.”
- Authenticate with a Face ID or Contact ID scan.
- For a locked app, that is it. For a hidden app, you will see a display letting you already know that you just will not get notifications or calls from the app.
- Faucet “Disguise App.”
To take away the lock on an app, lengthy press once more on the icon on the House Display or app web page and select “Do not Require Face ID.” You will want to authenticate to show it off.
To unhide an app, go to the App Library, choose the Hidden part, authenticate with Face ID or Contact ID, lengthy press on the app icon, and select “Do not Require Face ID or “Unhide App.” The primary possibility turns off the lock and retains the app off of the House Display, whereas the second each turns off the authentication requirement and provides it again to the primary out there opening on an app web page.
If you happen to flip off the lock and don’t add it again to the House Display, you will want to seek out it within the App Library to place it again on the House Display later.
Lock Display Updates
Apple did not make main adjustments to the Lock Display as a result of it was simply overhauled with iOS 17, however there are just a few updates value noting.
Rainbow Time and Different New Lock Display Widget Choices
With iOS 17, Apple added an choice to customise the font and the colour of the time on the Lock Display, and in iOS 18, there is a new rainbow coloration possibility that provides a variegated rainbow shade for the time. There aren’t any different adjustments to font or coloration choices.
Above the time, you may add a brand new Journal widget that presents a journaling immediate and opens the app if you faucet it.
For widget choices, there are new Well being app Vitals widgets, and new entries for electrical energy utilization and charges. These match the brand new House Display widgets.
Fast Buttons
For the primary time, you may change the Flashlight and Digital camera icons on the Lock Display, selecting one thing extra helpful or turning them off solely.
You possibly can select any Management Heart possibility for the Lock Display buttons, together with Shortcuts, Darkish Mode, Airplane Mode, Distant, Alarm Calculator, Translate, and extra. This transformation ties right into a redesign of the Management Heart, and it provides you much more potentialities for what you may launch from the Lock Display.
Apple is permitting third-party apps so as to add Management Heart icons, so you can too select from these. Relying on what you decide, it’s possible you’ll want to make use of Face ID or Contact ID to authenticate earlier than with the ability to entry an app from the Lock Display so as to protect person privateness and hold delicate knowledge from being simply accessible.
To vary your Lock Display buttons, comply with these steps:
- Lengthy press on the Lock Display after authenticating.
- Faucet on Customise.
- Faucet on Lock Display.
- From this interface, faucet on the “-” icon to take away any apps which can be already assigned to these buttons. If you happen to’re doing this for the primary time, you will have the Flashlight and Digital camera apps set to the default, which must be eliminated.
- From there, faucet on the “+” button and select a brand new management so as to add.
- Faucet on Carried out within the higher proper nook.
iOS 18 Wallpaper
There are 4 new iOS 18 wallpaper choices in pink, yellow, azure, and purple with an identical darker coloured swoop. These all have a Mild Mode and a Darkish Mode shade personalized by Apple, with the Darkish Mode that includes a background glow for the darker a part of the design.
You could find the brand new wallpapers by lengthy urgent on the Lock Display, and selecting Customise to switch an current wallpaper or “+” so as to add a brand new one solely.
Learn Extra
Extra on all the new options that had been added in iOS 18 will be present in our iOS 18 roundup.
