iPhone users will get a lot more freedom to customize the layout of their home screens in iOS 18, according to new reports.
The forthcoming iOS update is “considered internally to be the biggest update to iOS since the original iPhone,” Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported, and iPhone owners should prepare to see “a new home screen that’s more customizable” along with “a slew of AI tools.”
As any iPhone user knows, when you download or move around apps on your phone, they fall into place equidistant from the surrounding icons.
But iOS 18 could let iPhone users “create blank spaces, rows, and columns between app icons,” MacRumors reported, citing sources familiar with the matter, though the grid underlying the current app layout on your iPhone may stick around to ensure even spacing otherwise.
If Apple ships those changes, the added customization sounds like it would enable you to have a row or two of apps, a large empty space below them, and then more rows of apps beneath, as one example layout.
Android users, of course, have had more personalization options for their home screen app layouts for years, but this would be a first for iPhone owners.
New AI features “that help manage your daily life” are expected to be the biggest change to iOS 18, Gurman reported. Apple and Google are also in talks to bring Google’s AI model Gemini to the iPhone, he previously reported. Apple had also recently discussed possible licensing with OpenAI, according to Gurman’s report.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Apple is expected to announce the iOS 18 update at its annual WWDC event in June, with an anticipated release to the public in September.
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