An Iphone Owner’s Guide To Living Off The App Grid

The grid is simply a comfortable spot to live.

The app grid, I mean: nan rows and rows of app icons connected your iPhone’s homescreen. It’s familiar. Safe. It’s really I’ve lived pinch my various phones complete nan past decade. But astatine immoderate point, it started to consciousness oppressive.

All those icons staring astatine maine successful nan face, vying for my attention. The clutter! The distracting mini notification badges! The grid was a reasonable measurement to style apps erstwhile I had like, 10 of them. There are sixty connected nan iPhone I’m utilizing now, and I group it up from scratch a less months ago. 

Naturally, surviving off-grid aliases successful a non-traditional homescreen connection has been imaginable for overmuch longer connected Android. Google’s OS lets you support your aboveground clear and conscionable find your apps successful nan app drawer, which is ever a swipe away. You tin moreover switch nan launcher entirely. But iOS — wherever each caller app you download winds up connected your homescreen by default — hasn’t precisely made it easy to wantonness nan grid.

That started to alteration erstwhile iOS 14 added widgets, an app library, and nan expertise to hide apps from your homescreen — though I haven’t developed nan musculus practice to usage it much. Now, iOS 18 adds moreover overmuch flexibility. You tin put apps and widgets anyplace you want connected your homescreen, alteration their colors, and put overmuch functions into nan Control Center. But moreover arsenic nan apps and customization options personification multiplied, astir of america are still utilizing our homescreens successful fundamentally nan aforesaid measurement arsenic we did pinch our first smartphones. 

With nan caller options successful iOS 18  — and getting a peek astatine different peoples’ well-curated homescreens — I decided it was clip to do a mini cleanup. Why should an app I only unfastened erstwhile a play erstwhile I parkland downtown return up abstraction connected my homescreen year-round? Better yet, does immoderate app merit to inhabit that precious existent estate?

I spent astir an hr deleting icons, arranging widgets, and adding controls to create my caller homescreen. The camera powerfulness fastener connected nan iPhone 16 renders that icon unnecessary; nan action fastener launches nan oft-used daycare app, truthful that could spell too. When I was done, my haphazardly maintained strategy of folders pinch mini emoji labels was whittled down to conscionable 4 apps successful nan dock and a fistful of widgets dispersed crossed 2 pages, which I’m affectionately calling “Windows Phone 2.0.”

Was it scary? A little. But you cognize what? I don’t miss those rows of icons astatine all. Nine retired of 10 times nan app I’m looking for is successful nan Siri suggested apps that celebrated up erstwhile I unfastened search. If not, I type successful nan first less letters of nan app punishment and location it is. You could swipe complete to nan app library, I guess, but I hardly ever do. 

The biggest drawback is that I’ll spot a notification, disregard it, and past hide astir it for days since nan app icon and its mini reddish notification badge aren’t successful my look anymore. But I missed things coming and location moreover erstwhile I was surviving connected nan grid, and those badges are a existent problem for me: I’m nan benignant of personification who needs to scope badge zero, truthful I’ll perpetually unfastened apps conscionable to clear retired nan notifications and get nan reddish dot retired of my face. Living disconnected nan app grid removes this distraction, and it’s nan number 1 constituent I admit astir my caller lifestyle.

I’m happy pinch my caller homescreen, but immoderate of my colleagues return nan off-the-grid accuracy to nan adjacent level. Weekend news editor Wes Davis could thatch a masterclass successful functional iOS homescreens. He keeps a less apps successful nan dock, and Wordle gets a spot connected his grid, but extracurricular of that it’s conscionable widgets and shortcuts. 

“I dislike looking for things connected my phone,” he told me. “All of this benignant of started pinch maine jumping connected nan bandwagon of ‘I want to usage my telephone less, and personification it beryllium small distracting.” The grayscale shortcut icons connected his homescreen trim down connected ocular clutter, and he doesn’t consciousness arsenic drawn to opening time-suck apps for illustration TikTok erstwhile nan icon isn’t correct successful beforehand of him. Many of nan shortcuts too incorporated drop-down menus, truthful he tin motorboat correct into nan task he’s looking for. 

Best of all, this method allows him to style his telephone by nan action he’s trying to take. An icon branded “Podcasts” launches immoderate podcast app he’s utilizing astatine nan moment. If he ever starts utilizing a different app, he’ll support nan aforesaid shortcut icon and personification it motorboat a caller app. “I don’t personification to put a caller app successful location and get myself utilized to looking for that icon.” 

News editor Jay Peters takes a overmuch straightforward approach. Like me, he finds nan changeless beingness of app icons distracting. “If I don’t spot nan app correct connected my homescreen I’m measurement small apt to usage it and conscionable scroll pinch it.” He has a afloat of 7 apps connected his homescreen — including 3 successful nan dock — and will occasionally fto an app icon backmost onto nan grid if he’s going to beryllium utilizing it a batch successful a short play of time. “If I’m going connected a ample roadworthy recreation aliases something, perchance I’ll move nan maps app [at nan apical of nan homescreen],” he says, “But different I effort and support it to conscionable these 7 apps.”

Both of my colleagues personification achieved a level of equilibrium successful their integer lives that I admire. I too heard from galore overmuch who said that they still support a homescreen filled pinch app icons, but they almost ever skip nan grid and spell to Spotlight hunt erstwhile they petition to unfastened an app. And nary of america knows alternatively erstwhile it happened, but overmuch than 1 personification I talked to agreed that nan Siri suggested apps astatine nan apical of nan hunt pane sewage really bully astatine immoderate constituent successful nan past. More often than not, nan app I’m looking for is correct location earlier I moreover type a missive into nan hunt bar.

That benignant of constituent gives maine dream for a early wherever personalized AI tin thief maine find what I’m looking for connected my phone, pinch small input from me. But if I’ve learned point from this exercise, it’s that you don’t personification to clasp for AI aliases nan metaverse aliases ambient computing aliases immoderate to make your integer life small annoying. There are devices successful our hands already; you conscionable petition a mini courageousness to clip disconnected your comfortableness area behind.