iOS 26 Unlocks iPhone Customization: A Guide to Effortless Icon and Color Personalization
iPhone users now have unprecedented flexibility in customizing their home screens with the release of iOS 26. Apple has introduced new tools that allow for precise control over icon size, color, and overall appearance, giving users greater freedom to design their interface. This update arrives as mobile operating systems increasingly prioritize personalization, reflecting a broader trend in consumer technology.
To access the new customization options, the process begins uniformly: navigate to the Home Screen, long-press on an empty space until apps begin to jiggle, then select “Edit” in the upper corner, and finally tap “Customize.” Any changes made automatically apply to all pages of the Home Screen.
One notable feature is the ability to enlarge icons and remove their names for a cleaner, more streamlined seem, particularly on larger displays. This represents achieved by tapping the size icon (squares of varying sizes) within the customization menu to activate “Large App Icons” mode. To revert to the default view, the process is repeated.
iOS 26 offers four main styles for changing the appearance of icons: the default style maintains the developers’ original designs, even as “Dark Mode” provides a darkened background for supporting icons, which may help conserve battery life on OLED screens. “Transparent Mode” gives a glass-like appearance that changes according to the phone’s wallpaper, and “Unified Color Mode” allows you to uniformly color all icons manually or via a “dropper” tool to select a color directly from the background, with an “Auto” option to synchronize with the system’s light/dark settings.
Despite these additions, some limitations remain. We see not yet possible to assign a different color to each individual app, nor does the system directly support external icon packs. Customization is applied comprehensively across all pages, rather than allowing for independent editing of each page.
