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How to Make a Great Custom Home Screen
Mar 11, 2025
Install iOS 18: https://www.cultofmac.com/859380/download-ios-beta/ Widgetsmith: https://www.cultofmac.com/859380/download-ios-beta/ Cult of Mac Today: https://newsletters.cultofmac.com/ Article on Cult of Mac: https://www.cultofmac.com/860281/customize-ios-18-home-screen-layout-icons-widgets More Apple news: http://www.cultofmac.com Chapters: 0:00 Intro 0:37 iOS 18 Features 1:47 Custom Icons 5:02 Widgets Produced by Extra Ordinary for Cult of Mac Music composed by Will Davenport, arranged by D. Griffin Jones Follow us! Twitter: https://twitter.com/cultofmac Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cultofmac Instagram: https://instagram.com/cultofmac/
View Video Transcript
0:00
you've probably seen some of the
0:01
beautiful custom iPhone home screens
0:04
that go viral on social media after all
0:07
you open your phone and look at your
0:08
home screen dozens if not hundreds of
0:10
times every day so a personal home
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screen that matches your aesthetic can
0:15
bring a little spark of joy to your
0:16
daily life I'm going to show you the new
0:19
features that are upcoming in iOS 18 how
0:22
you can go above and beyond with custom
0:24
icons made with shortcuts and how you
0:26
can top off your look with widgets I've
0:30
scoured the internet mostly Reddit for
0:33
the finest
0:36
examples iOS 18 which is available now
0:39
as a developer beta if you're so daring
0:42
opens up loads of customization options
0:45
for one you can switch from light icons
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to dark icons or to tinted icons which
0:52
adopt any color of your
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choosing however bear in mind that the
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tinted icons still use dark back grounds
1:01
which means that these will work best if
1:02
you have a similar dark Moody wallpaper
1:05
with a strong accent color if you're
1:08
already running iOS 18 just tap and hold
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on the home screen to enter jiggle mode
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tap edit in the upper left then tap
1:16
customize you can pick between automatic
1:19
light dark or tinted and from here you
1:21
can use the sliders to find a color you
1:23
want or you can use the eyedropper tool
1:26
on the right to pick a specific color
1:29
out of your wallpaper
1:30
and if you want you can also tap the sun
1:32
button on the left to darken your
1:34
wallpaper a little more also if you want
1:36
a good unobstructed view of your
1:38
wallpaper you can move the apps and
1:40
folders to the bottom of the screen for
1:42
the first time giving you easy access
1:45
with one hand so Apple's built-in
1:47
options are really easy to set up but
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they are somewhat limited the dark
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tinted icons will Clash if you want a
1:54
lighter color scheme if you want pastel
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colors like light pink lavender or aqua
2:00
blue you're going to need to go the next
2:02
level and make custom icons ever since
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these custom home screens first went
2:07
viral in 2020 loads of people have been
2:10
making custom icon packs for the iPhone
2:13
the website I go to is called icons8.com
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they have loads of different theme packs
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you just tap on one and then you can
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search for the icons you need like
2:23
YouTube Instagram Facebook you'll see
2:26
the results and it's really easy to add
2:28
these to your photo Library custom icons
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don't always need to be about changing
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the color scheme this one for example is
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just as colorful as Apple's own but it
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changes the aesthetic to one with gentle
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colors and soft shadows and this one
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goes in the complete opposite direction
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styled like Windows 95 I'm actually
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using custom icons on my personal home
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screen but in a little more of a subtle
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way I'm using the regular iOS 18 dark
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mode icons because I still like having
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the color
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differentiation but for the three
3:00
thirdparty apps on my home screen
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SnapChat Mona and net newswire they
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obviously haven't been updated for iOS
3:07
18 yet since it was just announced as a
3:09
beta like two weeks ago so I made my own
3:12
custom icons to fit in with Apple's dark
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color scheme to swap out the stock icons
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for your custom ones here's what you
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need to do you'll open the shortcuts app
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tap the plus and the upper right corner
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then you'll tap open app and you'll
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select the app that you want to open
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that's all the shortcut has to do now
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you'll tap the share button in the
3:34
bottom toolbar and tap add to home
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screen now here comes the important part
3:40
you'll type in the label you want to
3:41
give it and then you'll tap the icon on
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the left and tap choose from photos here
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you actually pick the custom icon you
3:50
want to use and then you tap add in the
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upper right now you have your custom app
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launcher on the home screen to remove
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the old one just tap and hold on an icon
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tap remove app and then remove from home
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screen and you can move the new icon in
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its place you'll have to repeat this
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process for every custom icon you want
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to make which can be annoying if you
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have a lot of icons in your home screen
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but the end results will be worth it now
4:18
there is one thing to note about this
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kind of setup whereas Apple's built-in
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features will change the colors of your
4:24
app icons across the system this feature
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will only change them on the home screen
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the icons will be unaffected in their
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appearance in the app Library that's
4:34
because you're not really changing the
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icons you're just creating a new icon
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for the home screen now this
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customization hack does come with two
4:43
unfortunate side effects first you won't
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see any notification badges on the icon
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anymore and secondly every time you tap
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on the icon you'll see an annoying
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Banner on the top of the screen
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reminding you that you just ran a
4:57
shortcut which unfortunately cannot be
5:00
turned off even in iOS 18 finally you
5:02
can enhance the look of your home screen
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with custom widgets Apple's built-in
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widgets are very functional and
5:09
utilitarian but not necessarily
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beautiful using the tinted color scheme
5:14
they'll adopt whatever colors you use
5:15
for your app icons but the results still
5:18
may not look ideal using an app like the
5:20
viral sensation widget Smith you can
5:23
combine all of these three tips together
5:25
to really elevate your aesthetic the sky
5:28
is the limit you can add a calendar
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widget Weather Widget countdown widget
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or a photo widget that does nothing
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except look good and with the plethora
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of customization options for fonts and
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colors you will be able to match any
5:42
style you want Steven hacket the
5:43
managing director of widget Smith said
5:45
to me over email with new tools coming
5:47
in iOS 18 people will be able to more
5:50
easily create their own unique aesthetic
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widget Smith is updated very regularly
5:55
to adopt all the latest IOS features
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like widget interactivity ity and with
6:00
new color schemes every few months to
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inspire you Steven also told me that
6:05
when users update to iOS 18 this fall
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they'll be able to customize control
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center with thirdparty widgets made with
6:12
Widget Smith as well you can download it
6:14
from the App Store it's available with a
6:16
subscription for $1.99 a month or $1
6:19
199.99 a year to see even more of what's
6:22
possible I recommend you subscribe to
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6:26
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cany you can click here to subscribe or
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in the link in the video description
6:48
remember to like And subscribe I'm D
6:50
Griffin Jones with Cult of Mac
6:54
[Music]
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