Home screen customization for iPhone just got better with 15 important new features

The Home screen is the most important part of your iPhone when it comes to customization, and Apple has just given us even more options to personalize it.

In iOS 15, you could already hide apps and even entire pages from the home screen. You can also change app icons that offer alternatives or disable any app icon with shortcuts. And you can set your wallpaper to change automatically based on time, current dark or light theme, and other triggers.

You still have all of these options in iOS 16, but you can now customize even more features on your iPhone’s Home screen – and there are a few big changes you should be aware of.

1. Spotlight search takes points of your page

The iOS 16 update replaces the page dots above the home screen dock with a new Spotlight search bubble. Tapping it does the same thing as swiping down on the home screen page. As with dots on a page, you can swipe left or right on the search bubble to scroll through other pages on your home screen faster.

Long pressing or tapping on a bubble in the home screen editor still opens the page selector tool to show or hide pages.

2. You can return page points

If you like the old dots on the page and prefer to swipe on the Spotlight search tool or use Back Tap, you can bring the dots back. Go to Settings -> Home Screen, then turn off the new Show on Home Screen toggle under Search.

3. The Spotlight search bar is above the keyboard

Following in Safari’s footsteps, the search bar sits right above the keyboard every time you open the Spotlight search tool on the home screen, so your eyes don’t have to deviate that far to see what you’re typing. As you scroll through the results, the bar moves to the bottom of the screen when the keyboard is hidden.

4. The Books Widget Finally Appeared

For some reason, Apple has never made a widget for their Books app — until now. In iOS 16, you can add a new Books widget to your Home screen or Today view. A small widget shows the current book you are reading and your daily goal. The middle one also shows the percentage of completion. And the big one also shows the days of the week.

5. Wallpaper automatically adjusts to fit your lock screen

One of the most notable features of iOS 16 lets you customize the lock screen background for each occasion. With each lock screen wallpaper, you can choose between font type, color theme and add widgets.

When you add a new lock screen wallpaper to your arsenal from the lock screen or via Settings -> Wallpaper -> Add New Wallpaper, you will be asked if you want to “Set as Wallpaper Pair”, which means the home wallpaper screen automatically match the lock screen.

6. There are emojis and cool wallpaper colors

When you change your lock screen wallpaper, you can choose a repeating emoji or a group of emoji in different grid styles. In addition, the Color option lets you choose any solid color or apply a gradient effect such as Vibrant, Steam, Deep, Hue, and Vibrant. Since you can match your desktop wallpaper and lock screen wallpaper, you can also use any of these emoji and color options for your home screen background.

7. There are also automatic wallpapers

In order for your iPhone to automatically change wallpaper on iOS 15, you need to set up automation in the Shortcuts app. This is no longer required if you want to shuffle weather conditions, astronomy updates, or your photos. You can customize these when choosing your lock screen wallpaper, and they will also be your home screen background unless you change it manually in Settings -> Wallpaper.

8. You can change related wallpaper

You don’t need to match lock screen and home screen wallpaper. When you first set up your lock screen wallpaper, instead of “Set as wallpaper pair”select “Customize Home Screen”.

If you’ve set your lock and home screen wallpapers to match each other, or just want to change your home screen wallpaper, go to Settings -> Wallpaper, tap Customize below your home screen image, and select a different option, such as color tint., color gradient or photo. Once you tap Done, this wallpaper will be associated with the currently active lock screen wallpaper. So when you switch the lock screen wallpaper, it will also use the home screen wallpaper you set for it.

9. Apple wallpapers have readability blur

When using one of Apple’s wallpapers as your home screen background, you’ll see an option in the wallpaper editor called Blur. It’s off by default, but when you turn it on, the wallpaper blurs out to make apps, folders, widgets, and other home screen content look crisper and clearer.

10. You can choose a solid wallpaper fill

While Apple has had a few solid color wallpapers from time to time, you always had to find your own image to use if you wanted a solid background color on your home screen. Not anymore. Solid Color Fill is the second option from the left in the Home screen wallpaper editor. Click “Color”, then click again to open the Color Picker where you can choose the color and its intensity.

Advice. If you want the home screen and lock screen to have the same solid color, select “Color”from the lock screen wallpaper selection menu, choose your color, and then swipe up to the “Solid”option.

11. Or Gradient Wallpaper Fill

If you’re more into a fading color than a solid color, the third option from the left in the home screen wallpaper editor lets you choose a gradient. Tap Gradient, then tap it again to open the gradient picker where you can choose the color of the gradient and its strength.

Advice. If you want to use the same solid gradient on your home screen and lock screen, choose “Color”from the lock screen wallpaper selection menu, choose your color, and then swipe up to the Vibrant Gradient option. Additional gradient styles are available in the lock screen wallpaper editor, so if you want to use a Bright, Vapor, Deep, or Tone gradient on your home screen, it must match the lock screen wallpaper.

12. Photo wallpaper can be black and white, two-tone or color.

If you choose a photo as your home screen background, you can now leave it as it is (“Natural”) in the wallpaper editor, or make it “Black and White”, “Two Color”or “Color Fill”instead. Swipe left or right across the screen to switch between options.

13. You can change Duotone and Color Wash colors.

If you’re selecting your wallpaper with Duotone or Color Wash, tap the ellipsis (•••) in the editor and select Style Color to change the hue to a different color.

14. Focus lets you choose homepages that focus on you

There are a lot of changes to the Apple Focus tool for iPhone, and one of them offers you a home page when you set focus.

Tap “Select”for the home screen in the new “Customize Screens”section, and you can see page suggestions that remove apps and widgets not related to that focus. For example, work focus can only save apps related to email, tasks, contacts, automation, promotions, utilities, etc. If none of the suggestions work for you, or if you don’t see any suggestions, switch your current home screen. the pages you want to focus on.

Only the Home screen pages you selected during focus adjustment will be displayed on your iPhone whenever focus is active. If you didn’t select anything during the focus adjustment, your home screen will remain the same as before.

15. You can always see the battery percentage

Apple has added a feature to most iPhone models equipped with Face ID that finally allows us to view the remaining battery percentage in the status bar. Touch ID models have been able to do this before, but now most Face ID* models can too, albeit with a significant visual change: the numbers are inside the battery icon instead of a separate status bar icon.

This is a system-wide option, but you’ll see it every time you’re on the home screen if you choose to enable it.

• Additional information: Finally! Constantly view battery percentage in your iPhone’s status bar instead of battery level

* Not available on iPhone XR, 11, 12 mini, and 13 mini.

What is missing?

We’ve wanted this for a long time, but Apple still hasn’t provided a way to remove app, folder, and widget names from the home screen. There are workarounds you can use to do this, but we wanted Apple to include an option in iOS 16 to change icon and widget names.

Other features that would be cool on the home screen include a way to space out app icons and hide the dock, but those didn’t show up in iOS 16 either.