Report: iOS 18 will let users recolor app icons, and place them wherever they want on the home screen

As reported by Mark Gurman in his latest Power On newsletter, iOS 18 will give users more customization of their iPhone’s home screen. As well as being able to place icons freely, rather than confined to the current fixed aligned grid, Apple will also be unlocking app icon customization as a first-party feature for the first time.

Specifically, Gurman reports that iOS 18 will allow users to “change the color of app icons”. For instance, they could make all their social networking apps have a blue color, and all their finance apps have a blue color.

Home Screen icon customization is currently possible via hacks like making single-action home screen Shortcuts that launch a given app. But this is a bit fiddly to set up.

With iOS 18, it sounds like that experience will now become a fully-supported feature. It’s unclear if icons will be able to be freely customized, and changed to whatever new picture the user desires, or if the system will simply allow for recoloring, i.e retaining the same symbol but changing the color palette used.

iOS 18 will be officially unveiled in a couple of weeks time, at Apple’s annual WWDC developer conference, held this year on June 10. Apple will launch the next major versions of its operating systems, including iOS 18, with an expected heavy focus on artificial intelligence features.

As well as a raft of AI capabilities, and long-requested home screen updates like the ability to choose your own app icons, Apple is also expected to update many of the iPhone’s built-in apps with new features in what has been described as one of the biggest iOS updates ever.