Apple released iOS 26 in September, and it introduced a Liquid Glass design to your device. As part of the redesign you can make your app icons and widgets on your home screen clear. These changes build on the home screen customization options Apple introduced to the iPhone with iOS 18.
Apple released iOS 18 in 2024 and it brought a major (and long overdue) change to your iPhone: the ability to customize your home screen. With iOS 18, you can remove app labels, change the color of app icons and arrange apps around the screen in new ways. You can frame your background with your apps or give your iPhone a more personal touch with different colored apps.
Here are the ways you can customize your home screen to make it as fun and unique as you are.
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How to remove app labels
1. Long-press on your background to enter jiggle mode — where your apps are all shaking.
2. Tap Edit in the top left corner of your screen.
3. Tap Customize.
4. Tap the two different-sized squares in the top-right corner of the new menu that appears at the bottom of your screen.
Your app icons will grow and the labels beneath them will disappear. This looks much cleaner to me: I don’t plan on displaying app labels ever again.
If you don’t like this, follow the above steps again and tap the different sized squares once more. The apps will revert to their normal size and the labels will reappear.
How to change the color of your app icons and widgets
1. Long-press on your background to enter jiggle mode — where your apps are shaking.
2. Tap Edit in the top left corner of your screen.
3. Tap Customize.
Then you can choose between Default, Dark, Clear and Tinted app icons and widgets.
If you choose Dark from this top menu, Apple’s first-party apps, like Messages and Safari, will now have an almost-black background. This change applies to first-party Apple apps and some third-party apps, like the YouTube and Bluesky. Other third-party apps, like Instagram and Snapchat, are unchanged.
Choosing Dark will also darken your background, which could reduce the amount of power your iPhone uses and extend your battery life.
Clear will turn your app icons and widgets almost translucent.
If you choose Tinted, you can turn your apps and widgets every other color. Tapping Tinted causes a gradient scale to appear at the bottom of the Customize menu. You can adjust the scale until you get just the right hue. You can also tap the eyedropper icon near the bottom right corner of the menu to select a color from your background that matches your icons more closely. That way you’re not moving the sliders and getting frustrated because the colors aren’t quite matching — a total hypothetical, I swear.
If you choose Clear or Tinted, you can also give your app icons and widgets a Light or Dark tint. There’s also an Auto option that will automatically change the tint based on whether light or dark mode is active. These options appear across the bottom of the Customize menu. Personally, Clear with a Dark tint is my new favorite color scheme.
How to arrange apps around your home screen
Arranging apps on your home screen is the same process as before. You can either enter jiggle mode by long-pressing on a blank portion of your background and then dragging apps where you want them to go, or press and drag an app to a new location.
You can place all your apps near the bottom of your screen, have them frame your screen or arrange them in any other number of patterns. Because I’m right-handed, I placed most of my apps on the right side of my screen so I can easily tap them without fear of dropping my phone. This also makes it easy to ensure you see your background if it’s a picture of a loved one or a pet.
The grid is still present, so you can’t place apps on top of each other or too close together. If you enlarge your apps, there will be a sizable gap between your dock across the bottom of your screen and the lowest row of the grid. It looks like it’s big enough to fit another app icon, but you can’t — I tried to no avail.
For more iOS news, here’s everything iOS 26.2 and iOS 26.1 brought to your iPhone and my review of iOS 26. You can also check out our iOS 26 cheat sheet.
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