Make Your Perfect iOS 14 Homescreen

Alyssa Hiarker | October 12, 2020

When iOS 14 dropped, it took the internet by storm as everyone scrambled to turn their phone screens into the best reflection of themself they could. On Twitter, “#ios14homescreen” blew up, as people showcased their edited lockscreens that look like they could’ve taken hours to perfect. It can be a bit overwhelming the first time that you start trying to edit your homescreen, especially when you don’t know all of the resources that you have at your disposal to create the perfect homescreen for you. 

How To Find Pictures 

When searching for pictures to use for your homescreen transformation, it can be hard to find photos that match the vision you have in your head by just using Google unless you have a specific image already in mind. When you don’t have a specific image and just have the vibes that you’re trying to achieve in mind, image searching websites like Pinterest can be the best place to find what you’re looking for. It’s also important to cater your searches to the website you’re using. If you’re attempting to achieve the modern minimalistic beige look on your homescreen, typing “beige wallpaper” can return results that focus on actual wallpaper. Typing in “beige aesthetic”, “beige minimalistic aesthetic” or “beige aesthetic wallpaper”, on the other hand, provides a plethora of results that can be used as both lockscreens and supporting photos on widgets. 

What You Need To Know About Widgets 

No iOS 14 homescreen is complete without a widget of some sort. Whether it displays the date or time; photos other than the ones on your homescreen, or the phases of the moon, widgets add extra personality and depth to the phone you’re creating.  Widgetsmith and Color Widget are the most popular apps to use to get widgets on your phone for a reason – the programs are easy to use and have a ton of customizable options to make whatever you add fit in with the rest of your screen. Color Widget focuses primarily on a variety of different clock and calendar widget options, while Widgetsmith has clock and calendar widgets, along with a variety of others. It’s just a matter of deciding which app’s design you prefer for the widget you’re adding. The first time you add a widget to your homescreen can be a bit difficult for people who haven’t done it before, but all you have to do is follow this quick and easy steps to set it up on your homescreen. 

  1. Create your widget and return to the homescreen 
  2. Scroll to the left most screen on your phone
  3. Scroll to the bottom of the left most screen and hit edit
  4. Click the plus button at the top and scroll down to the app that you’re wanting to add a widget from  
  5. Once the widget is added to this screen, press and hold it to be able to drag it to one of the pages on your home screen 
  6. If you have multiple widgets of the same size from Widgetsmith, press and hold the widget, click edit widget and click the name of the widget that you’re trying to add from your screen. 

Changing Your App Icons 

For a lot of iOS 14 editors, editing their app icons to fit with their theme is a must. It can seem like an impossible task, but it’s just a matter of utilizing the Shortcuts app that’s preinstalled on your iPhone and adding the photos that you want to be the new display icon. To do so, go to Shortcuts and use the plus button at the top of the screen to search for the “Open App” shortcut. Once you’ve added it, click the app you want to make a shortcut off, add it to your homescreen, and edit the picture and name. The only downside to the quick and easy process is that clicking on the edited icons on your homescreen will take you back to Shortcuts before opening the app that you intended for it to add. Despite that, if you’re looking to take your homescreen to a new level, changing the icons can help take it to that extra step. 

Utilizing the App Library 

For the apps that you don’t use that often or the apps that you don’t want to go to the trouble of editing, you can put them in your app library where they’ll remain peacefully out of sight. To move an app to your app library, press and hold the app like you would to delete it. Once you hit the minus button at the top of the app icon, choose “Move to App library” instead of “Delete” and it will no longer be on your main pages. If you choose to move any apps that you get notifications from, the notifications will still appear as usual, so don’t worry about moving the phone app or Instagram to your App library.