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Is the ability to “theme” your home screen something Apple needs to prioritize or is it just a fad?

Rogifan

Rogifan

macrumors Penryn
Original poster
Nov 14, 2011
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I am not not really against it, some people have been jailbreaking for years to do it and you used to see a lot of custom icons on OS X.

But there are too many apps to make everyone happy. It's better that developers themselves use the API that lets you make a set of icons people can choose from.
 
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Jessica Lares said:
I am not not really against it, some people have been jailbreaking for years to do it and you used to see a lot of custom icons on OS X.

But there are too many apps to make everyone happy. It's better that developers themselves use the API that lets you make a set of icons people can choose from.
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It appears the new app Widgtesmith is involved. I’ve seen a lot of Apple techies promoting this app but to get all the features is a monthly subscription and right now the app seems a bit limited.
 
Rogifan said:
It appears the new app Widgtesmith is involved. I’ve seen a lot of Apple techies promoting this app but to get all the features is a monthly subscription and right now the app seems a bit limited.
Click to expand...

Yeah. Well, it's like Overcast where it benefits from being something someone in that circle developed and has the audience of people who trust them with their money.
 
Jessica Lares said:
Yeah. Well, it's like Overcast where it benefits from being something someone in that circle developed and has the audience of people who trust them with their money.
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Right. I’ve seen some of the themes people are posting on social media and it’s probably something I’d play with for a day and then get bored/sick of. A lot of them look tacky. I don’t see Apple ever embracing this. Same with 3rd party Watch faces.
 
It's a fad among the more tech savvy Apple users who really care about customization (i.e. a very small percentage of iPhone users). My father in law is the typical iPhone user. His home screen looks exactly the same as it did when he first bought his iPhone a few years ago. I think most iPhone users don't really care about widgets or customization in general. I bet about 75+% of Apple users will never even use a single widget.
 
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Back when I use Androids on the early days, I love to customize my theme and icons, but I got bored and go default most of the time.
The older I get, the more practicality, usability and stability that I prefer.
Never missing it when using iOS devices.

And in my early iOS days, I even go as far as jailbreaking and cuztomize the function of my home button, widget on screen, swipe for certain features, etc.

People who never got this feature probably is having fun for the moment and will got bored eventually.
Just like this thing isn’t a thing anymore for Android users. Some still do, most won’t matter I guess.

But it‘s mostly good when Apple adding new stuffs, although they often late to the party, but they do it ‘right’ most of the time.
 
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Rogifan said:
It appears the new app Widgtesmith is involved. I’ve seen a lot of Apple techies promoting this app but to get all the features is a monthly subscription and right now the app seems a bit limited.
Click to expand...

the monthly is just for weather and tides. The aesthetic stuff is free.
 
Jessica Lares said:
Yeah. Well, it's like Overcast where it benefits from being something someone in that circle developed and has the audience of people who trust them with their money.
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Feel like the people who are complaining about the price haven’t used the app.

how it’s being used in all the screenshots floating around is free. I haven’t seen anyone use it for weather.
 
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I think having the choice is nice. I’ve been there, done that in my Samsung days so I’m not too fussed about doing it now.
However, icon packs would be great. Since IOS 7 the icons have been lame, IMO.
 
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It seems to me like a simple "fix" would be to recognize when a shortcut only opens an app and does nothing else, and short-circuit the operation to avoid opening the Shortcuts app in the foreground so it looks like the icon opens the app directly. This would allow customizers to do their thing while Apple wouldn't have to explicitly support user-specified icons (which I don't see them ever doing).
 
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bankshot said:
It seems to me like a simple "fix" would be to recognize when a shortcut only opens an app and does nothing else, and short-circuit the operation to avoid opening the Shortcuts app in the foreground so it looks like the icon opens the app directly. This would allow customizers to do their thing while Apple wouldn't have to explicitly support user-specified icons (which I don't see them ever doing).
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That would be a nice fix, but the brief switch to the Shortcuts app is something I can live with. My main issue, and the reason I deleted my app shortcuts, is the loss of notification badges. If there was a fix for that I'd be wasting so much more time.
 
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Sital said:
That would be a nice fix, but the brief switch to the Shortcuts app is something I can live with. My main issue, and the reason I deleted my app shortcuts, is the loss of notification badges. If there was a fix for that I'd be wasting so much more time.
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Yeah, that and the long-press menu on app icons. I can't see Apple supporting this type of customization natively, so it's always going to be a bit of a compromise for those that want to do it.
 
Theming has been done for years with jailbreaking. Nothing new.

It’s a cheap jailbreak imitation but it’s funny that people are catching on.

I wonder how many doing all this customization said ‘I don’t see the point in jailbreaking’ back then 🙄
 
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It will pass. I did it on an Android once but it’s one of those things where the more you mess with it the less satisfied it becomes until you are constantly changing it chasing satisfaction. One day you reset your device and look at the stock stuff and realize it works just fine.

They way it launches through Shortcuts really must kill the responsiveness of opening an app. No?
 
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EM2013 said:
Theming has been done for years with jailbreaking. Nothing new.

It’s a cheap jailbreak imitation but it’s funny that people are catching on.

I wonder how many doing all this customization said ‘I don’t see the point in jailbreaking’ back then 🙄
Click to expand...

No, nothing new, but alot of people who would have liked to theme their phones weren't comfortable with jailbreaking for one reason or another. As someone who used to jailbreak and create themes, I agree it's a cheap imitation, but it's what's available right now.
 
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Rogifan said:
It’s all over social media right now. Is this a hack that Apple will find a way to disable in an update?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1307563270925103105

Jason Snell thinks Apple needs to prioritize.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1307866331245473793

I think it’s a fad that some people will play with but most people won’t bother. Honestly a lot of the ones I’ve seen look tacky.
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This has been an ability on Android and one of the top reasons folks like to jailbreak. Has been for a lot of years.
Would be nice to see on iPhone/iPad - could be a good money maker too.
 
Really has no interest. I don’t care to change the icons on my phone. I don’t even use widgets on my main screen.
 
I’m sure the folks at Apple are not happy about it at all, since they pride themselves on the aesthetic they have created over the years. Unfortunately the designs I‘ve seen are all pretty tacky and just remind me of the stuff I saw on Android forums. The good thing is that the ability is there and I predict that Apple will just grin and bear it at this point. They can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube and the negative twitter reactions would be worse than seeing a few screenshots of questionable home screens. I would be very surprised if anything like this comes to the watch.
 
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Serious question, if one is launching an app through shortcuts, doesn’t that slow the app opening speed? And, on iPad, can you still launch an app for side by side view or the slide over feature?
 
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Not really a 'priority', but carefully handled by Apple, there's nothing wrong with allowing users to personalize their devices to better reflect their use or aesthetic. And their attitude to date has been their traditional nanny state - "We know what you really need, even if you disagree", which is unhelpful to many.
In the meantime, they stick their oar in - widgets aren't meant to be 'live' but static, you can't place app icons wherever you like, and their App Library places apps in folders thery think they should go in, not user set - so a bit of a game to figure out where your app is, unless you resort to the much simpler Search function.

Android would never had gotten a toehold or grown to the usage it has now if Apple had been more sympathetic to the needs of users and, of course, not charged a premium for lack of it.
 
Bazza1 said:
Not really a 'priority', but carefully handled by Apple, there's nothing wrong with allowing users to personalize their devices to better reflect their use or aesthetic. And their attitude to date has been their traditional nanny state - "We know what you really need, even if you disagree", which is unhelpful to many.
In the meantime, they stick their oar in - widgets aren't meant to be 'live' but static, you can't place app icons wherever you like, and their App Library places apps in folders thery think they should go in, not user set - so a bit of a game to figure out where your app is, unless you resort to the much simpler Search function.

Android would never had gotten a toehold or grown to the usage it has now if Apple had been more sympathetic to the needs of users and, of course, not charged a premium for lack of it.
Click to expand...

Since when?
In the past couple of OS’s we have had interactive widgets. Not a lot, but they are there.
 
Not a fad. Theming iOS via Jailbreaks predates the App Store, which is to say, people have been doing it basically since the iPhone was first released.

The demand is there, and has always been there. Phones are highly personal devices, and people want to customize them, in the same way we customize our clothes. It just hasn't been possible without a Jailbreak.
 
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