Top 18 Best iOS Home Screen Ideas

iOS 14 model opened up many ways for customization of the home screen. You can do various things like removing apps and adding widgets and pages from your home screen. Are you looking for a nice looking home screen for your iPhone?

You have landed at the right place. We have provided 18 simple tips to customize your home screen. This gives iOS home screen ideas. 

Tips to Customize iOS Home Screen

1. Change the Wallpaper

The wallpaper determines what your final home screen looks like. Remember, it should be consistent with your phone’s aesthetics of widgets, app icons, and similar items. Open the Settings app, click on the wallpaper, and choose a new wallpaper to choose wallpaper. 

You can also use the apple provided still image. When you select the list of unavailable items, you can choose photos from the gallery. 

2. Color Code Apps

Arranging apps according to their color on the home screen is one of the coolest options. For example, all red color apps will be on one screen, and yellow color apps will be on another screen, and so on. You can apply this concept to folders as well.

You have to touch and hold the app icon to move it to a different page. Or you can keep them on the same page. 

iOS home screen ideas

3. Define Folder Purpose

Often people would name the folder as music, entertainment, productivity, shopping, etc. Instead of doing so, define the apps’ purpose within it or what they help you with. For example, if you call a folder a music folder, name it a listen-to folder. 

You can use verbs like a watch, write, navigate, read, shop, play, listen, photograph, share, talk, and name the folders. For renaming it, touch and hold the folder. From the menu, select rename option. Tap on the folder name. Then, type the new name. 

4. Use Emoji for Names

If you are a person who loves emojis, you can use them for folder names. You can go with the emojis that you can easily find. 

5. Reset Your Home Screen

Sometimes people mess up with the layout of their home screen and would like to return to their default view. You can easily do this by resetting the home screen. Go to settings, click on General, Reset, and Reset home screen layout. You have to set up the home screen layout from scratch.  

6. Add Widgets

The concept of widgets came via iPhone 14. You can access various information about the app quickly without opening the app. You have to press space on the home screen to add widgets. Click on the + icon at the top. Click on the widget to preview it.

You can select the right size of the widget by swiping through the available list. When you finalized everything, tap on add widget. Custom widgets are also available. 

Widgets

7. Change the App Icons

Apple has no simple method for changing the app icons. But this doesn’t mean that we can’t change it entirely. To change any icon in your Apple iPhone, you must use Apple Shortcuts App. There are many websites available where you can get free custom app icons. 

Also, apps like App icon changer is useful and comes in handy. Remember, badges will not be visible if you create apps using this method. It would help if you used the original app icon on a separate screen to see the badges. 

8. Keep Apps in Library Only

This will remove the existing apps from the home screen. To prevent new apps from the home screen, go to settings and click on the home screen. Under newly downloaded apps, select the app library only option. 

This option will add the newly installed app to appear in the library only. To add it to the home screen, you must do the work manually.  

Apps in Library

9. Have a Clean Home Screen

In earlier iPhone models, all the installed apps used to show up on the home screen. Removing an app from the home screen would uninstall them. But with iPhone 14 onwards, removing an app from the home screen would not uninstall them.

You can swipe left from the last home screen page and view them in the app library. This feature helps you to keep the important apps on the home screen. Even you can remove all of them to get a clean home screen. 

Clean Home Screen

For removing an app from the home screen, touch the app and hold its icon. You have to select the third option, Remove app. Then, click on the Remove from the home screen option. Click on the Delete app to uninstall it and completely uninstall the app. 

10. Use Focus Mode for Changing Home Screen

The Focus mode option was introduced in iPhone 15. It is a set of profiles that allows you to silence the calls and alerts on your iPhone. The interesting part is you can have different home screen pages depending on the active focus mode.

For example, if you use the reading focus mode, you can keep book-related apps on the home screen. Likewise, you can keep health-related apps and widgets for a fitness profile mode. The rest of the pages will be hidden.

Go to settings, click on focus, and go home screen. Enable the toggle button available next to custom pages and select the pages to be displayed. But remember, you have to set the pages that you need ahead of time. Otherwise, they won’t appear on the list. 

11. Reorder or Hide Pages

You can remove extra or unnecessary apps from your home screen without deleting them. This option would be useful when you want to declutter the home screen and keep only the needed pages. 

For removing pages, touch and hold a space on the screen until the icons start shaking. To enter the customization mode, tap on the dots at the bottom.  

12. The Monogram

Have you ever gotten stuck with the grid layout on your home screen? We have a perfect solution for you. You can use iEmpty to create blank icons that match your wallpaper. You can use those icons to create spaces in your home screen layout. 

It also has the option of selling your initials with the app icons. 

13. The Bottom Line

Do you know? The bottom of the screen is the prime real estate Because it is the easier part to reach. That is why Apple has kept the Dock down there. This helps you to ignore the top of the iPhone home screen completely to use back icons for shifting your app towards the bottom. 

14. The One Hander

People like big screens but reaching it will be a pain to go for icons at the farthest edge. Instead of using your fingers every time, why don’t you keep all your icons down one side? You can use iEmpty to create a blank home screen layout. 

This allows you to move the remaining apps to whichever side you want. 

15. The NoticeBoard

This layout is the best option for people who gets anxious when they see all categories of notifications at once. You need to group the apps that use notification badges into urgent and non-urgent folders. This makes it easier to see at a glance how many apps that require your attention.

16. Incognito

Do you have any secret apps that you don’t want others to know? You can create an invisible icon for it with the help of shortcuts or iEmpty. Once you have created the invisible icon, you must name it with an invisible Unicode character from empty characters. 

17. Librarian

Do you have a problem organizing your apps? Librarian options help you to arrange the apps according to their alphabetical order. Hereafter, you need not worry about where you need to put the new utility or game. You can add them to its folder. 

18. Monochrome

With the help of the shortcuts app, you can create white, grey, and black icons. Camera and Settings are system apps that already use greyscale icons; you don’t have to worry about them. Once you create the monochromatic app shortcuts, you can move the original apps to the app library. 

Conclusion

You have to be patient, as it takes time to customize your home screen. Since Apple puts some restrictions on the home screen, we have to think out of the box and use some tricks to come up with all sorts of creative layouts. 

FAQs

Can You Customize Your iPhone For Free?

Yes, you can customize it for free. With the iOS 14 model, you can create many home screen customizations that you have not seen before. It even allows you to create your widgets and icons. 

How Can I Change My iPhone Theme For Free?

You have to install Browser themes on your iPhone. To install this, you have to open the select themes option on your iPhone. You need to check the boxes of themes you want for your iPhone. 

Can You Change App Icons On iPhone?

In the shortcuts app, search for the open app. Click on App and select the icon that you want to replace. It will show the preview of the icon. If you are interested, you can add that icon to your iPhone.

What Are Some Good IOS Home Screen Ideas? 

Some of the good iOS home screen ideas are monochrome, librarian, incognito, emoji names for the app, resetting the home screen, changing the app icons, and having a clean home screen. 

Meet the Author

Abdul Rahim has been working in Information Technology for over two decades. Learn how Abdul got his start as a Tech Blogger , and why he decided to start this Software blog. If you want to send Abdul a quick message, then visit his contact page here.