A look at Apple’s redesigned home screens for iOS 14.
Screenshot by Sarah Tew / CNET
Change is never easy, especially for longtime iPhone ($ 699 at Apple) owners who have perfected their display design. Now Apple left and changed all that. “Important redesign” is a phrase that is being launched. That’s true iOS 14 brings customization tools that present a new way to rearrange your apps for easy viewingand the ability to place widgets of various sizes all over the screen. You can even hide entire pages of your app’s icons that you don’t use, but don’t want to remove. But what you will get, in fact, is not a home screen redesign, just a little flexibility.
The new home screen tools are completely voluntary. This is what happens if you omit them entirely: nothing at all.
When iOS 14 hits public beta in July and for everyone else in the fall (developers can download iOS 14 now), you will actually see the same home screen layout as now iOS 13 or 13.5, with an icon grid that spans multiple screens.
In iOS 14, however, you will have several new options. You can add widgets to the home screen if you want, including choosing their sizes, position and if you want a new feature called Smart stack to change a main widget based on the time of day. (For example, you may want the weather in the morning and a relaxation routine At night.)
See this:
First shot: iOS 14 and all its new features
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You can view and hide multiple pages of apps that you don’t use or remember frequently. That will reduce clutter without you having to remove apps. (Press and hold until the apps move. Touch the row of circles at the bottom of the screen. Select the pages you want to hide, then press Done.)
The apps are still there, but now, and this is where that folder view comes in, there is a new way to find them. App Library is Apple’s name for a new feature that keeps tabs on all of your apps by organizing them in those big square folders you see above. You can reach it by swiping right until you reach the end of the remaining home screens. Then swipe again until you get to the App Library, it’s like a bonus page.
And this is a page curated through Apple’s AI. It has suggestions and recently added apps on top, as well as folders that have organized the apps you have by type. You can scroll vertically to find the icon it recognizes, or you can type the application in the search field or scroll alphabetically by application name.
If you don’t want to use it, you can keep the screen layout exactly as it is.
The same goes for widgets. iOS 14 will give you the same layout that it has today by default, but you will soon have the option to add widgets to the home screen and rearrange them by dragging and dropping them.
To learn about other new and interesting iPhone tricks that you can see on your screen, read the Picture in Picture video tool. And here it is every important detail in iOS 14.
