How to Customize Home Screen on iPhone without Jailbreak.
Actually, you cannot customize the iPhone home screen like you can on an Android phone. However, you can customize the icons and position of the apps. The iPhone home screen is fully consistent with the layout and style of the application. It has been this way since time immemorial, and I have four ways to customize the home screen on iPhone without jailbreaking.
Before we start
The following methods are based on a built-in iOS feature called Add to Home Screen. This allows you to create a bookmark icon on your home screen. We’ll create transparent icons to customize the layout of the app, because the large screens on the iPhone XS and XS Max are simply not designed for one-handed use. With these bookmarks, you can position the icons at the bottom or create your own layout. The only limitation is that these icons will trigger a bookmark when accidentally clicked, so keep that in mind. Let’s start.
Personalize the home screen on iPhone
1. Use Siri Shortcuts
Siri shortcuts help you automate the most repetitive actions on your iPhone. We covered some useful Siri shortcuts in our previous article, and as it turns out, you can also use the Siri shortcut to bookmark your home screen and create transparent icons.
Although this method only works with solid colored backgrounds and if you want to create your own background layout, the following method, Makeover, is the best solution.
However, if you want to use Siri shortcuts to customize your home screen, you need to change your iPhone’s background to a solid color first. To do this, go to “Settings” and click “Wallpaper”, then select a fixed background. Make sure perspective zoom is off. I chose a black background to keep everything minimal.
Then install the Shortcuts app (free) from the App Store. It is not installed by default after upgrading to iOS 12 if you don’t already have the Workflow app installed.
Now you will need the same background image for the bookmark. Open the Shortcuts app and tap the + button in the upper right corner of the screen. A new screen will open, click the Share button in the upper right corner of the app again and select Add to Home Screen. You will be taken to the edit page where you can change the title and icon.
It asks for the name of the shortcut, enter a blank ASCII character in the title box, or copy and paste the unquoted character “⠀”. Now select the “Home Screen” tab and click the “Select Photo” button. Remember the “black” image we set as the background? We will use the same image to set the icon. With the image selected, click Done.
It will open the link in the Safari browser and you will have to click the share icon again and select Add to Home Screen. Your transparent icon is now on your home screen.
If you don’t see it, then well done. You have successfully created an invisible icon. You can move it by holding the icon and moving it to the desired position. The icon will disappear after pressing the Home button.
You can add as many bookmarks to your Home screen by clicking the Add to Home Screen button in your Safari browser.
Limitations
- Siri shortcuts only work with solid backgrounds.
- You need to manually enter a space.
2. Using Makeovr.io
Unlike Siri shortcuts, this method is easier and more customizable, you can customize your home screen with any static wallpaper, not just black or solid color.
To customize your home screen, go to your Safari browser and open makeovr.io. Scroll down the page and click Start Makeovr.
It shows a disclaimer warning that your wallpaper must be stationary and that Motion Reduction is enabled. You can follow the steps in the image below and make changes before proceeding.
Now you need to upload a screenshot of the home screen, but it should be blank. To do this, press and hold the app icon and swipe left until you see a blank screen, then take a screenshot. Take a screenshot by pressing the Home button and the Power button at the same time. Go back to your browser and upload this image to your web page.
After the image is loaded, it displays a screen similar to your home screen, with blank spaces clipped instead of apps. You can now select a field by tapping it once. It will highlight the box in red, then touch the Share button and add it to the home screen.
Click the Add button and do not enter anything in the bookmark title. On the home screen, you will see a misplaced icon like the image below.
You can drag it to the designated location and repeat the steps for all the icons you want to replace. Or you can download all the icons at once and arrange them piece by piece like a jigsaw puzzle. I, of course, prefer the latter as it is more fun.
Limitations
- You can only use static wallpapers.
- You need to manually rearrange each icon.
3. iSkin
Finally, this method allows you to customize your home screen using your own image or one of the existing packages on the website. This is the closest thing to setting up an Android level on an iPhone. Go to iSkin.tooliphone and click on the theme of your choice. It shows lock screens, home screens, and app icons.
You can download wallpapers and set them as your lock and home screen. The wallpaper bundled with the theme is certainly fine, but you can choose any other wallpaper without affecting the theme’s functionality.
After adding wallpaper to your home screen, tap the app icon and select Show Quick Actions, then select all icons.
Scroll down, click on Create Topic, you will get a warning, ignore it and continue.
After installing the icons, all the icons will be added to your home screen. You can see the icons on the home screen. Theme icons do not replace existing applications, think of them as custom shortcuts.
These themes are developed by individual developers and may not work for every app on your iPhone. You can test each icon and remove duplicate or unsupported icons.
To remove a theme from your iPhone, you can simply go to Settings, tap General, scroll and tap Profiles. Select a profile, tap the options button, and tap delete.
Limitations
- Application icons only work for some applications.
- Profiles add extra icons.
4. The hidden method
I found this method a while ago and thought it was just a glitch, but it turns out that it still exists in iOS 13.4. You can leave the first page of the home screen blank to better see the wallpaper you have set. You just need to move all the icons from the first page to the last, and when you’re done with that, you’ll be left with a blank page. This only works for the first page, and if you try to clear the second or even the third page, it won’t work.
To clear the first page of the home screen, simply press and hold the icon to edit the home screen. Then move all app icons to the next page. Click Done and you will have a blank page with no hidden icons.
Limitations
- This only works on the first page of the home screen.
- This may be a bug and will be fixed in a future update.
Customize home screen on iPhone without jailbreak?
These were three ways to customize your iPhone screen without jailbreaking. Siri shortcuts are the fastest solution for creating invisible icons, but it only works with solid backgrounds. Makeovr works great with all types of backgrounds and you can create nearly invisible icons. iSkin converts the layout using third party profiles on your iPhone, although it does offer customizable app icons, it depends on whether the app allows it. Let us know if you’d like to customize your iPhone home screen in the comments below.
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