iPhone - page 7

You’ve probably seen some beautiful custom iPhone Home Screens on social media. Some people go to great lengths to creatively customize their Home Screen. You can go for a specific theme and aesthetic using custom icon colors and widgets.

Why spend so much time and effort? For one thing, you likely look at your Home Screen dozens (or even hundreds) of times every single day. A custom Home Screen that matches your style can bring a little spark of joy to your daily life every time you whip out your iPhone. And iOS makes Home Screen customization easier than ever.

Keep reading (or watch our video) for a quick introduction into the world of custom iPhone Home Screens. You’ll find out about new features in iOS 26, how to go above and beyond using Shortcuts, and how you can top off your iPhone aesthetic with widgets. I’ve scoured the internet (Reddit, mostly) to find the finest examples.

You can set up persistent notifications from specific apps so they stick to the top of your iPhone screen. With persistent notifications in iOS, when your phone is unlocked and an important alert comes in, the notification will stay visible at the top of the screen until you act upon it.

It’s an easy way to make sure you don’t miss (or forget about) critical notifications on your iPhone.

This proves super-handy for things like medication reminders. It also works wonders if you’re the sort of person who ignores notifications once they disappear from your iPhone screen. I’ll show you how to make your notifications sticky.

iPhone took the top spot in global smartphone sales in 2025. Apple outsold all its rivals, including arch-rival Samsung.

iPhone shipments grew 10% year over year, buoyed by strong demand for the new iPhone 17 series.

A new iPhone 17e could be right around the corner, and rumors suggest Apple’s next budget model will be a sizable jump over last year’s. Expect it to dump the old screen notch as well as boast other enhancements that bring Apple’s budget handset closer to the more premium options.

In short, those looking for a bargain on a new iPhone should keep their eye out for the 17e.

This week on the Cult of Mac podcast: Did the world just get its first glimpse at the folding iPhone’s screen? And how the heck does anybody bend glass?!?
Also on the Cult of Mac podcast:

• Plastering the iPhone 17’s camera plateau with tiny stickers is a thing.
• A new auction lets you bid on some truly bizarre Steve Jobs artifacts, and we’re generally amazed. Will people pay for Jobs’ old 8-tracks and bow ties?
• Special guest (and frequent Cult of Mac contributor) Graham Bower explains how he vibe-coded his new strength-training app, Reps & Sets 26. It’s an inspirational tale!
• And finally, we pay tribute to the best Apple setups we saw last year.

Listen to this week’s episode of the Cult of Mac podcast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video, embedded below.
And, as a reminder, you can still hear our friend and colleague Erfon Elijah on The CultCast.

You can adjust the background blur of a Portrait mode photo on iPhone and Mac — even after you’ve taken the picture.

Because the iPhone stores the depth data that it uses to create the blur effect along with the image itself, you can adjust how blurry or clear the background looks. It’s super-easy to get just the right amount of aesthetically pleasing background blur, aka bokeh, to make your images look perfect.

Why would you want to tweak the background blur on your iPhone photo? A blurrier background, under the right conditions, can make for a very dramatic picture. It can effectively emphasize the subject of your shot. Or, you might want to turn up the blur to intentionally hide details behind you. On the other hand, if you’re in a photogenic location, you might want to decrease the blur so you can see more of the gorgeous background scenery.

Either way, I’ll show you how to edit Portrait mode’s background blur in photos on iPhone and Mac.

January 9, 2007: Apple CEO Steve Jobs gives the world its first look at the iPhone onstage during the Macworld conference in San Francisco. The initial reaction to that first iPhone demo is mixed. But Jobs is confident that Apple has created a product that people want — even if they don’t know it yet.

The palm-size device combines an iPod, a phone and a PDA. The iPhone unveiling excites many Apple fans but critics remain skeptical.

If you see someone using an iPhone 4, don’t think you’re hallucinating. Members of Gen Z have dusted off the 15-year-old handset and put it back into action.

It’s part of a trend toward retro tech, so it might be time to pull your old gadgets out of storage to see if you can turn them into cash. Or maybe starting using the devices yourself, now that they are cool again.

Logging how you feel throughout the day with your iPhone can help you identify what’s causing you trouble or what works for you, whether it’s work, family, exercise, sleep or other things. You don’t need to hand your data over to a third-party app; the built-in and totally free Apple Health app comes with a built-in mood tracker that helps you keep tabs on your mental well-being.

In order to make any kind of meaningful change, you need to understand fully what helps, what doesn’t, and what you can do. And that means effectively tracking your mental health. Luckily, starting your log is easy. Set it up once, and your phone will ask you every day so you don’t forget.

Let me show you how to set up a mood tracker on your iPhone.

You can turn your iPhone into a smart display on your nightstand, at your desk or in the kitchen using StandBy mode. It’s an attractive way to put your iPhone to work as a small information board or digital clock when you’re not actively using it.

Of course, it works best if you own a phone with an always-on display. However, it works with any iPhone with MagSafe running iOS 17 or later. Best of all, StandBy remembers different preferences for different rooms, so you can set it up as a bedside clock in the bedroom, a digital photo frame in the living room, or a music controller in the kitchen.

Here’s everything you can do with StandBy on your iPhone.

This week on the Cult of Mac podcast: Apple’s got a fantastic year ahead of it, with a genuinely prodigious pipeline of new products coming in 2026. From a folding iPhone and a low-cost MacBook to entirely new product categories, get ready for 12 months of exciting new Apple hardware.

In our first show under the new Cult of Mac branding, and our final podcast of 2025, we discuss all the great stuff that Apple fans have to look forward to in 2026.

Also on the Cult of Mac podcast:

• We kick off with a thorough explanation of what’s up with the new podcast name, the direction we plan to take the show in 2026, and what Erfon is up to with The CultCast. We also apologize for any confusion about the changes (and, as always, we wish Erfon the best).
• We wrap the show with Griffin’s dead Apple products draft, in which we each select discontinued hardware that’s ready for a comeback.

Listen to this week’s episode of Cult of Mac in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video live stream, embedded below.

Reps & Sets 26 is a brand-new strength training app designed exclusively for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. It was developed by a long-time Cult of Mac contributor: me, Graham Bower.

Reps & Sets 26 isn’t just another generic cross-platform fitness app. I made it Apple-exclusive, to take full advantage of the latest OS 26 technologies like CloudKit, SwiftUI and HealthKit, to deliver a truly native experience. And right now, it’s a free download. Perfect timing for your New Year’s resolutions. Get Reps & Sets 26 now, and get ripped in 2026.

There’s a fun way to personalize your iPhone 17 Pro: tiny stickers around the camera. Social media is blowing up with pictures from people showing off how cool their handset looks with the new decorations.

The trend may have started in Korea, where it’s part of ponku — personalizing phones, cases, laptops, etc., with stickers. A recent iPhone 17 Pro ad made by a Korean wireless carrier certainly added fuel to the fire.

December 31, 2012: App piracy hub Hackulous shuts down, bringing an end to two of its most popular pieces of software, Installous and AppSync.

Before the shutdown, iPhone jailbreak tool Installous allowed users to install “cracked” or pirated apps on their iOS devices, thereby avoiding paying Apple and developers. AppSync let users sync their cracked apps with iTunes.

The shuttering of Hackulous is a clear sign that the iPhone jailbreaking era is coming to an end — and that the App Store’s revolutionary business model is sound.

A hidden setting will speed up Haptic Touch, the fantastic feature that lets you preview links and bring up menus on your iPhone. If you use Haptic Touch all the time, like I do, changing this setting will make your iPhone feel turbocharged. With the settings tweak, your iPhone will bring up handy shortcuts — hidden actions, content previews and contextual menus — in a flash. And that saves you precious time as you tap around your screen. Alternatively, if you find Haptic Touch annoying and trigger it accidentally all the time, you can slow down the time needed to activate the gesture. That way, a tap won’t be mistaken for a tap-and-hold.

If you want the absolute best fast charger for your new iPhone, check out Anker, one of the top makers of phone accessories.

Anker makes an array of chargers for iPhone, including some of the fastest on the market. You never know when you have half an hour (or less!) to charge your phone. You can prepare yourself for that — get a fast charger. All modern iPhones support charging at high speeds, whether it’s plugged in, on a MagSafe stand or a Qi2 charger.

Don’t know the difference, or what your phone supports? Read our guide below.

Apple delivered some of its most memorable advertising campaigns in 2025, blending storytelling, humor and technical innovation. From emotional tributes to playful satire, the tech giant demonstrated why it remains a marketing powerhouse.

Here are the best Apple ads of 2025, which really helped define Cupertino’s creative year.

The first folding iPhone is expected to break iOS out of its years-long rut, and new rumors give us the most complete picture yet of a handset supposedly set to launch in 2026.

These come from a formerly prolific source of often reliable Apple leaks.

It’s not too late to give your Christmas tree a holiday makeover that any Apple fan would be proud of. Grab some string, download Cult of Mac’s awesome decorations inspired by iconic Apple devices, and get hanging!

How do you set up a new Apple Watch? Whether you got the surprisingly capable Apple Watch SE 3, the battery-boosted Apple Watch Series 11 or the rugged Apple Watch Ultra 3, you might be wondering how to get started. After all, the Watch is unlike any other Apple device, both in its dependence on an iPhone and in the way it works.

The good thing is, Apple has made it really, really easy to get things up and running. Let’s take a look.

The new iPhone setup process gets easier every year. These days, you only need to do a few things to transfer all your old iPhone data to a new one. Still, certain tips and tricks can smooth the way.

The hot new tip this year is that you can directly transfer data from your old iPhone to your new one using a cable. Plus, other time-honored iPhone setup tricks will help things run smoothly. Here’s how to set up your new iPhone the right way.

You can turn multiple Live Photos shot on your iPhone into a video. Simply select a group of Live Photos taken in a burst, and you can create a single, stitched-together video that you can save to your library and share on social media. It’s a much more accessible way to enjoy those little snippets of video. 

Here’s how it’s done.

December 23, 2005: Apple files a patent application for its iconic “slide to unlock” gesture for the iPhone.

At this point, the iPhone remains a secret research project. However, the ability to unlock the device by sliding your finger across it signifies Apple’s big ambitions for its smartphone. Cupertino wants the iPhone that it’s racing to develop to be easy to use, intuitive and miles ahead of the competition technologically.

If you’re strongly tempted by an iPhone 17, but haven’t yet found a reason to make the jump, then you must not realize how amazing the phone’s new Center Stage selfie camera is. It’s my favorite feature of Apple’s latest smartphones because it makes video calls so much easier on me, and smoother for the people I talk to.

Even better: The base model iPhone 17 gets this great feature, not just the Pro variants.

This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: Leaked code indicates Apple is working on a new iMac Pro, years after the powerful all-in-one faded from the scene.

Does a new iMac Pro make sense in the Apple silicon era? And what price point would make it appealing? We discuss the possibilities.

Also on The CultCast:

• The 20th-anniversary iPhone sounds like a real cracker — if Apple can pull off the impossible.
• Another leak gives us a look at new features coming in iOS 26.4.
• Hate iOS 26’s Liquid Glass user interface? Griffin walks us through a weird hack that will keep your iPhone on iOS 18 forever.
• We wrap up the show with our new trivia segment, Apple Genius. Should we make it a regular addition to the podcast?

Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video live stream, embedded below.