Revive the glorious days of custom system software!

In the epic debate of ‘who’s better’’ between Android and iOS users, the apparent freedom of customization to android users always takes the lead!

Google’s mobile OS provides more command to users over how the software feels and looks, while Apple restricts these customization options for the sake of usability and consistency. But with the latest iOS 14 release, things have started moving to a different direction. iPhone and iPad users have started figuring out the option of personalization in their mobile phones.

The two popular twitter hashtags “#ios14homescreen or #ios14” give plenty of ideas about themed layouts that connect wallpaper, custom app icons, and widgets. In fact, people are quite enjoying that! All over Youtube and TikTok apps, people have started demonstrating personalized layouts and homescreens. Cool!

Many of the designs are themed around popular tastes like Steven Universe, Animal Crossing, Minecraft, Harry Potter, and BTS, while some users emphasized on single aesthetics such as line drawing and neon icons. This long-lost freedom of altering the display according to your will reminds us of that beautiful chaos of personalization with Winamp skins or custom PC themes.

You may be wondering why this is happening now. Well, it’s all because of the launch of iOS 14, which allows users to add widgets to their home screen. Normally, widgets are supposed to provide prompt-access to apps in your home screen allowing you to see information related to reminders, weather reports, calendar appointments at one glance. But with iOS 14 release, you can use a widget to display the desired image, which drives users to enhance their digital front rooms by turning them them into picture frames. 

The good news is you can also customize the default display of widgets according to your preferences! Here’s how you can do this:

So let’s state the obvious first: the customization of the home screen is simple but it consumes a lot of your time, and the results are incredible! All you need is the real visuals: a custom wallpaper following an icon pack. You can easily download the set of a particular theme of your choice from Google.

In order to add a custom widget to your home screen, you’re required to download the Widgetsmith app. After downloading this app, you’ll just need to open the app and create your desired widget with a single click. From there, you can customize the default appearance of iOS widgets such as the clock and calculator with a variety of colors and fonts, or create a new one with a static image.

After creating your widget, move to your home screen, long-press on the screen until the customization option pops up, then select the ‘+’ sign located at the top left of your screen to add a widget. You can scroll through the option to find your custom-created widgets.

Once you’re done with the above steps, the last step requires you to add custom app icons and for that, you have to download Apple’s ‘Shortcuts app’. After downloading this app, press the ‘+’ icon in the top right to create a new app. Select go Then go > Add Action > Scripting > Open App > Choose, and click the app that you want to personalize. After customizing the app, press “Next” in the top right, type out the name, and press Done.

Lastly, to add your custom made icon to the home screen, tap the three-dot menu beside the shortcut action you just created, then press the three-dot menu again, and then tap “Add to Home Screen.” After that, click on the icon underneath the “Home Screen Name and Icon” pane and press and choose the image you want to use from your camera roll. Ughh, all done!

Congratulations! You just have an app with a customized icon, but this pleasure comes with pain too. Each time you click an app it will divert you to the Shortcut apps and then to your app of choice. It’s quite annoying TBH, but we will tolerate anything in the name of aesthetics of our choice, right?

If you have any solutions for that annoying problem, please let us know in the comment box, and share your creations with us, too!