11 Best iOS Home Screen Ideas and Customization Tips

Most iOS devices(iOS 14 and higher) allow users to customize the home screen of their devices according to their desire. As an iOS user, you are allowed to add different widgets, add, remove or move apps, you can add different page shortcuts to the home screen or remove pages, can set different themes, & wallpapers, sorting of apps & pages on the home screen in different styles and plenty of more customization changes. Every iPhone or iOS user wants a superior home screen look for its iOS device. We are bringing some important and helpful tips & ideas to customize your iOS home screen. 

Tips to Customize Your iOS Home Screen

There are many ways to customize your iOS home screen. Some of the top-notch ideas frequently used & most loved by the users are listed below.

1. Wallpaper

Wallpaper is a compulsory and very noteworthy element of your home screen that makes the core of your home screen look. So this must be very attractive and should according to your app icons, widgets etc. If your home screen wallpaper is too dull & boring and denting your iOS home screen charms then change to give your home screen a new look. 

To change the wallpaper, go to the iOS device's main setting menu and open the wallpaper tab. Here tap on 'Choose a New Wallpaper' to select a new one. You can use live wallpaper, preloaded still images provided by Apple, or can go to your image albums to set an image of your own as home screen wallpaper. 

If you are not satisfied with the preloaded wallpaper collection offered by Apple as well as your own gallery images then you can try different wallpaper providing and wallpaper-making apps such as Kappboom, Zedge Wallpapers, Live Wallpaper Maker and many others. You can use different wallpaper for your iOS home screen & lock screen. Moreover, you can also use different short-length videos as your lock screen wallpaper. 

2. Remove or Rearrange Pages of Home Screen

If there are too many pages on your home screen to flip between, then manage them by removing those unnecessary pages or arranging them according to the use of apps contained by those pages without deleting any of your device's apps or features. 

Long press any vacant space on your device's home screen until the apps icons on this page are shaking, look at the bottom of the screen to find dots, click on these bottom dots and start customisation. Now click on the (✔) checkmark symbol in the circle given below the page in order to hide the page given above this ✔ checkmark. You can exit this customization by tapping anywhere on the screen except on these popping pages.  

Users can also remove/delete any unwanted page from those popping pages in customization mode by tapping the (-) icon given on each page. This (-) minus icon will only be visible for those pages whose checkmark is removed and will not be visible on pages with checkmark signs. Deleting a page doesn't mean deleting all the apps and features contained by this page, rather you can find all those apps & games in your app library. It's just the removal of a page from the home screen to give it a new look.

You can also flip the popping pages to change their order. Just hold and drag any popping page to put it into the desired position. The top left page is always the first page of your home screen so keep that page in this position which contains your important and frequently used apps. 

3. Change of Home Screen During Focus Mode

Apple allows its iOS users to enjoy a variety of focus modes. It is a set of really interesting auto-customized profiles which not just mute all your notifications and alerts but also behave differently according to the selected mode. For example when your device focus mode is reading then your home screen will show a certainly unique setup showing apps, widgets & features only regarding books or other reading material. In Fitness focus mode, you will have only fitness-related stuff on your home screen. The remaining apps & other stuff will remain hidden until you turn off your focus mode.  

If you wanna try focus modes to stay focused on a  task, then go to the main setting menu » focus tab » select the focus profile you want » and Tap on the Home screen. You should also turn on the 'Custom Pages' toggle to choose pages that you wanna display on the home screen during this focus mode. You must keep all your pages ahead of time. Otherwise, these pages won't be shown in the list. 

4. Keep Your iOS Home Screen Clean 

iOS models earlier than iOS 14 keep all the installed apps on the home screen instead of on the app library. it means removing any app from the home screen is uninstalling it from the device. But not now, as the iOS 14 and all its successor devices are coming with an app library in which all your apps are kept in this library. The app icons on the home screen are just to reach these apps more quickly and conveniently. If you remove any of the app icons from the home screen will not uninstall it from the device at all.

As these apps are kept in your app library and you can access them from there even if you removed the app icon from your home screen. You just need to go to the last page of your device's home screen and swipe left to enter your app library to find all your installed apps whether they are removed from the home screen or not. This feature enables you to clean your home screen by keeping only desired and necessary apps and removing all unwanted & rarely used apps from you your home screen. Cleaning your home screen is very simple.

Just a long press on any app will open a popup showing 'remove app' as well as 'delete app' options. Tapping on the remove option will only remove the app from the home screen but the app can be accessed from the app library while the delete option will completely delete/uninstall the app from your device and will be shown neither on the home screen nor the app library.

If there are too many unnecessary apps on your device, you can delete/uninstall them at once with the multiple apps deleting features. Just hold press any of the apps until all the apps start shaking. Now enter your app library, and you will see the (X) icon on every app. Just go on to click the (x) icon of those apps that you wanna delete completely from your device. 

5. Restrict Apps to App Library 

You can reduce the pages of the home screen and can also decrease the number of apps on the home screen with the above-mentioned methods but what about new apps that you will install on your device. Yes, you can also manage them by restricting them to the App library only. Here you go, just open your device setting » Home screen tab » and tap on 'App Library Only'. Now all your new apps will be restricted only to the app library and if you want to add any newly installed app to the home screen then you have to add it manually. 

If you are willing to keep certain apps on your home screen then the below-given tips will be very handy to keep your home screen managed & well organized. 

6. Color Code Feature for Apps

This feature allows the user to organise apps according to the colour of app icons, e.g. all the apps with a blue icon colour will appear on one page while apps with red colour will appear on another and similarly with other colour apps. Just hold and drag an app to move it to different positions on the same page or to another page of your device's home screen. You can also apply this colour arranging concept in your app folders as well. 

7. Name App Folders According to Their Purpose

You can arrange apps in folders on the home screen according to the colours of the app as well as according to their purpose which I think is more convenient. You can arrange different apps in folders and give those folders certain purpose-defining names such as you can name your music stuff containing folder as 'Listen'. Similarly, you can also use other purpose-defining verbs for your apps folders e.g. watch, write, read, listen, study, fitness, photography, shop, share, talk etc. 

It is very simple to give a name to a folder, just simply long-press on a folder. It will show a popup, select rename option from this popup to rename your folder.

8. Emoji Names for Folder

If you are an emoji lover, share too many emojis and can identify each & every emoji instantly then trying emojis as folder names will be great fun to experience. 

9. Widgets

Though widgets are widely used in android devices in the iOS world this feature was introduced via iOS 14. Widgets allow you to access & use features of certain apps quickly & conveniently without even opening that app. In order to add a widget, simply hold on to any empty space on your device's home screen until the apps on this home screen page start shaking. As the apps shake, you will see a (+) icon at the top of all shaking apps. Tap on this icon, it will get you to widget preview. Here swipe through all the available widgets and find the one you wanna add to your home screen. To add the desired widget to the home screen click on the 'Add Widget' button given below the widget. 

Here is what more you can do with these widgets. 

• You can edit & customize your widget & its properties. Just long press the widget until it shows the edit option, and press 'edit' to start the customization of your widget. 
• Adjust the widget position on the home screen by tapping and dragging it to give it the desired position. 
• You can add different automated & informative widget pages from the list of Smart Stack Widgets given under the widget list. These smart widgets enable you to add weather updates, news updates, cricket updates, and different informative pages to your widget to keep you up to date. 

10. Change App icons

To change app icons on iPhone is not so simple at all but it doesn't mean that it is impossible. You can use the Apple Shortcuts app to change the icon of your home screen of ios. But only limitation in icons generated with this Apple Shortcuts app or any other  App Icon Changer app is that these icons do not contain icon badges.

11. Reset Home Screen 

If you are tired of trying plenty of layouts and home screen customisations and wanna return to the default view of your home screen then simply reset your home screen. Open your device setting, go to the 'General' tab, open the 'reset' tab and click on 'Reset Home Screen'.

Can I pin different websites & pages to iOS home screen?

Yes, you can pin your favourite pages & sites to the home screen to access them conveniently.

Can I use a video as Home screen Wallpaper?

Yes, you can use any of your videos or live video wallpaper as your screen wallpaper.