Hi y'll it's Annelies and we have to talk, we have to talk, about these custom iOS 14 iPhone home
screens that have been popping up like everywhere on the internet. They sure are pretty right? Well
there's actually a lot more to them than meets the eye. These home screens might look aesthetic and
"so fun" but are they practical? In this video I'm going to tell you everything that is up
with these home screens, how it is even possible, and if it's worth it. And of course, don't worry,
I will show you how to make these custom home screens with a shortcut on how to make the whole
process go even faster, which I bet you're not seeing in those other videos now are ya?
iOS 14 came out a few weeks back, and introduced the ability to add widgets to your home screen.
Widgets are a super cool way to customize your home screen that is "unlike anything you've
ever seen" on an iPhone before, and you can get information like battery life for your devices,
you can see your playlists, your podcasts, calendar events, like a photo slideshow. There's
a ton of possibilities when it comes to widgets. There's also now apps that you can download,
that come with specific widgets to make your phone look even more custom and unique,
and then somewhere along the way, I read that as a TikTok that set this into motion,
the trend of customizing how your apps looked on your iPhone home screen kind of took this
whole customization to the next level. And as you've seen these custom home screens pop up
everywhere online, you're probably wondering how the hell are people even doing this.
Well funny enough it's actually a pretty simple process, but it's overall more complicated than
you might think. Let me explain. So this app called Shortcuts came out with iOS 12 in 2018,
and it was formerly called Workflow, and it's essentially what it says it is. It's an app that
allows you to create shortcuts to run processes on your phone. If you're familiar with the app
called "if this then that" it's like the same thing. It's a form of coding that the layman
like you or I could do / you can't really code on an iPhone so this is the way you can do. It's like
a loophole app that Apple made for you... well loophole, more of like "here's customization
options but we're going to make it very specific into how you can make the customization".
So for instance, you can create a shortcut that when you click on that shortcut within
the shortcuts app, say a specific Siri command, or click on the shortcut on your home screen...
we're gonna come back to that, remember that part... it will run a series of processes or
actions that you've created. So for example, when I was in college I would do a lot of gigs out in
LA, but it would always be at a different place so I'd need directions home. So I created a Siri
shortcut that when I said the phrase "take me home" to Siri, it would open up my maps, set my
directions from my current location to home, text my mom and tell her that I was on my way home, as
well as opening up the podcast app and starting my latest podcast. How freaking cool is that? That's
like, I think that's really cool, but maybe that's the huge geek inside of me, I don't know, but
wow. That was all done through one phrase or one click of a button. I honestly love the Shortcuts
app and I think they are so cool, and I know I forget about them a lot, but there's just so many
cool things that you can do with them, when you actually use the app and remember that it's there.
Now you might be saying "Annelies, cool story but why do I care about the shortcuts app?" Well,
dear viewer, that is how these custom apps are being made. Now like I promised you, I will show
you at the end of this video how these custom home screens are being created, but let me just explain
what is happening here. Essentially what people are doing is creating a shortcut that is to open
an app, and then they are saving that shortcut to their home screen, and then they are setting
the icon to a picture that they have chosen. Most people are choosing photos to go with those icons
that either match certain color ways, pretty aesthetics, or themes for the "funny hahas".
You know the meme possibilities are endless here folks. Now my biggest "gripe" with these
custom apps and these custom home screens is that although they might look cute and pretty, there's
a lot more that goes into it that I don't think people quite understand. Now first let's talk
about the time commitment. In order to create one of these apps, you have to create the shortcut,
and then add it to your home screen. I timed myself going through this process and it took me
50 seconds. I was also surprised with how long that took. Now the iPhone XS screen can have 26
apps (*24) on one page. Let's say instead of doing all those apps, you decide to throw two
widgets on there, that leaves you with 16 apps. So it's going to take you like 15 minutes to make
16 ish customized apps, and you haven't even touched the widgets or the wallpaper yet. AND
that's not even including choosing all the pictures that are going on the app icons, so
we are talking a rather nice time commitment here. So I tested this whole thing out. I decided to go
with the theme that matches iOS 6 aka... I wanted to make my new iPhone look like an old iPhone. So
I had to go online, find all the pictures I was going to use, which was actually pretty
easy because they were already existing apps, so it's an easily searchable thing, and then I had
to manipulate them a little bit to make sure they worked for the app icon, and I wasn't even being
as like particular as I needed to be if I wanted all the apps to look perfect. And through creating
14 apps on my home screen with all these pictures, and all the editing, it took me 45 minutes.
So 45 minutes for doing 14 apps and I haven't even touched the ballpark of the widgets yet,
but to my understanding a lot of people are just using like the photos and the calendar ones to
like make the color themes match or something. I don't know. So like I have hopefully made very
clear for you, it is quite a time commitment to get all these cute and pretty and aesthetic apps.
But now let's talk about the practicality and the time commitment of actually using these apps,
which is the most important part in my opinion. So like I said earlier, when you create a shortcut,
you're creating a recipe for running a series of actions. So when you run the shortcut,
it runs those actions you have input. In the case of clicking on that button of the shortcut
that you've now added to your home screen, it tells your phone to open shortcuts, and then
run actions. So when you click on the app, this is what happens. It takes you to the shortcuts app,
and then runs the action which is opening the app that you wanted. So this shortcut is actually now
taking the scenic route to getting to the app that you wanted in the first place. All for the sake of
a pretty icon. Now mind you, it only adds like two seconds onto this whole process, but I just know
that for me, that would get real annoying, real fast. I mean especially with this being the age
where everybody wants things to be faster, faster processors, lower latency on games, higher refresh
rates, faster internet speeds, people want things faster. But this makes it go slower. It kind of
feels backwards, right? So yeah, there's a bit of time that goes into every aspect of these new
fancy apps. And there's another thing I wanted to mention, that I know is probably not going to be
important to a lot of people, but it's still worth mentioning, and that is when you make these custom
apps, you don't get the ability to have those badge icons on the app, because it's not actually
an app. So a badge icon is like those little red circles, with the number one on it when you have
a text message, or how many emails you have, you won't have that when you have these custom apps,
because these apps aren't apps. They are shortcuts to a shortcut. They are just saying hey, instead
of making the shortcut live within the shortcuts app, it's going to live on my home screen
and run a series of actions, and it just happens to be that the actions that you're having it run
is only to open up an app, but it's not an app so you're not going to get those badge icons.
Just wanted to mention that before you put in the time to make these custom home screens.
I don't want anybody to like waste their time and then find out after they've put 45 minutes into
making their home screen pink and purple that it's not gonna work the way they want it to. That's
kind of my whole goal for this video, just so you can hopefully know some of these things before
you commit the time to it. So now that you know what's up with these custom apps, like I promised,
I'm a woman of my word, I'm going to show you how it's done, but I'm going to show you the regular
process first, and then I'll show you how to do the shortcut to creating your shortcut.
To make your own custom app you're going to want
to go into the shortcuts app. If you don't already have it,
just go ahead and download it. Then you're going to go to the "+" button in the top right and hit
"add action" in the center, then in the search bar up top you're going to search for "open app".
Once you find that go ahead and tap on it, then where it says "choose" in the center, tap on that,
and choose the app you want to make the custom icon for. So I'm going to use the clock for this
example, tap on your app and then you'll see the three dots in the top right hand corner, go ahead
and click on that, and you'll see "shortcut name", enter in the name of the shortcut,
hit "add to home screen", and you can go ahead and rename the app right here. So if you
wanted it to have a different name on your home screen, this is where you would put that name,
and then the icon to the left hand side, you'll tap on that, and choose your photo.
So you can take a photo or choose an existing photo, I already have the photo downloaded.
Then you'll just need to search for the photo once you have it, tap on it, resize it to fit
in the square just how you like it, and hit "choose" then you'll hit "add" in the top right.
And then you'll hit "done" in the top right hand corner,
and then "done" one more time, and now you have your custom app. Now here's the very
important exclusive shortcut to making your shortcuts, to make this whole process go so
SO much quicker. Now it's time to show you the shortcut to making the shortcut,
so go ahead and do "+" in the top right, "add action" in the center, and search for "open app".
But this time instead of tapping on "open app", you're going to hit the "i" on the right hand
side, then you want to hit that blue star that says "favorite", and turn it orange.
What this does is when you go in to search for your actions, you have this orange circle with
a heart in it for favorites, and you tap on that, and "open app" will be right there,
so you don't have to type it in every time. Then just go through the motions. So there you go,
a trick to shave 20 seconds off your shortcut custom app creating time, and trust me, those 20
seconds... they do add up. So now that I've told you everything that you need to know about these
new custom iPhone apps for your home screen, it's now your choice if you want to actually go through
with it or not. I guess if you are really bored one day it is a new way to take up your time.
Consider it a new quarantine activity. Well, I hope y'all learned something in this video,
and that you're more prepared to go into this endeavor of myspace-ifying your iPhone, and to all
you Android folks... Yes... I know this type of customization has been available on Androids for
so long, but just like please, just let us have this one thing, all right? Let us enjoy this not
super practical, kind of silly way to make our iPhones just a little bit more custom, alright?
If y'all enjoyed this video, please give it a thumbs up, it really supports me and my channel,
and it tells YouTube that y'all like me, and my channel, and videos like these. And if you loved
this video, consider subscribing if you want to see more videos that are tech related, lifestyle,
or me-nonsense related videos in your subscription feed, and of course I want to know what you guys
think about these home screens, because I'm a sucker for them. I think they're fun, and
they're cute, but then when it comes to actually using them, I don't think they're practical, but I
want to know what you guys think, and by all means if you have gone through the time to customize an
iPhone home screen, send me a screenshot of it on like Twitter or something because I want to
see them, because although I think they are silly, like I said I also think they're kind
of cool and they're just fun looking. I enjoy it, I'm a sucker all right. Thank you so much
for watching this video and spending some of your very valuable time with me today. I appreciate you
and I appreciate your time, and I hope you enjoyed hanging out with me. Otherwise that is it for me,
stay beautiful, have a marvelous day, and I will see y'all in the next one. Bye!