Your iPhone home screen will always be identical to others despite how much customizations you put into it. That’s because there aren’t much to customize using the default Settings on your iOS device. Sure Apple allows you to move the app icons around, change the wallpaper, and that’s pretty much it.
No further styling is allowed unless you have a jailbroken device. This is what the article is going to be about. Showcasing a list of amazing Cydia tweaks that will let you customize your iPhone home screen.
You can use these crazy tweaks to change things up and make your iOS device better than ever. Oh, not to mention, stands out of the crowd as well.
Barrel
Barrel is a tweak that makes it less boring when we swipe back and forth between pages on our home screen. It adds different 3D effects and animations while scrolling you scroll through the home screen. With 18 modes to choose from, each page can have a different set of effect so you can never get tired of swiping.
Here are some of my favorites:
- Carousel
- Pac-Man
- Merry-Go-Round
- Shrink Completely
Barrel has been around since the early days of jailbreaking. It continue to get updated to support the latest jailbroken firmware. As of writing this, you can install Barrel from the BigBoss repo for iOS 10 and below.
Take a look at the short preview below.
Edge
Are you a Samsung fan who recently switched over to the iPhone? Don’t worry; Edge will make you feel like home. With this tweak, it brings the side interface from the Samsung S7 to iOS. Upon activation, you get to configure the four pages that Edge provide.
These include your recent apps, tasks, favorite apps, and your contacts list. If you like to multitask, the application pages have a quick shortcut that you can use to use a particular app without entering full screen. This way you can easily navigate to other parts of the home screen whenever you want.
The favorite contacts page also provides similar shortcuts by letting you quickly call, text someone, or email them without going to a dedicated app.
Hopefully, this tweak will help you ease the process of getting used Apple interface.
Goodges
Goodges is my personal favorite as it makes the icon badges on the SpringBoard look beautiful. Goodges replaces the current bubble icon badge with a very subtle one.
It changes the notification label of your apps into numbers. Here’s an example.
Additionally, you can add your own label color and its background if you want, the labels are highly customizable and can even be set to an automatic setting where the label’s color and background will adapt to the icon’s color.
ReformX
While many people love scrolling through their home screen, some prefer to have every app on their SpringBoard fits into one place. This is the goal of ReformX. With this tweak, you can fit up to 100 app icons on a single page. This can be very helpful if you have many pages on your home screen and do not want to keep scrolling for apps.
The grid size starts at 5×4 and extends to 10×7. ReformX also allows you to add more than four icons on the dock. Other options like ‘Hiding Labels’ and ‘Sorting Apps Alphabetically’ are included as well.
The latest version of ReformX support iOS 10. To find your presets, go to the following directory: /Library/Application Support/ReformX.
GlowBoard
Glowing effects are often seen as small customization. However, with GlowBoard it has more features than that. With this tweak installed, your apps will be able to tell its own story and status. When an app on your home screen has a glow effect, it means the app is running in the background, have pending notifications, or the icon has a badge.
I found GlowBoard useful because I don’t have to constantly check the App Switcher to see which apps are opened.
Forcy
3D Touch may be useful but it’s not available to everyone. Only recently released models like the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus will have such built-in feature. This is when Forcy comes in to save the day. This tweak makes 3D Touch compatible with older iPhone models such as the 5s or SE. Once enabled, you can deep press on any applications to launch 3D touch or quick actions that the app provide.
You can configure how Forcy works from the Settings app.
Cylinder
Cylinder is similar to the first tweak we mentioned, Barrel. However, it provides more variety of animations upon scrolling. This tweak currently stores around 45 icon effects for you to choose from.
Users can even create their own home screen effects using Luna. You can find the effect scripts in /Library/Cylinder.
Peek-a-Boo
Peek-a-Boo is another 3D touch inspired tweak (called Peek and Pop) for older iPhone models. Unlike Forcy where you have to swipe up to access the 3D Touch feature, this one will understand when you firmly press on the app icons on your home screen.
It recognizes the surface area that is touching the app and works accordingly; you can even put your apps in wiggle mode by softly holding on the icons.
Evanesco
People like to get rid of things when they no longer use it. Evanesco partially does that with your apps. Inspired by Harry Potter as it reimagines a spell from it, this tweak makes the app icons disappear from your home screen after some time of inactivity. However, it does not remove them entirely from your device.
Evanesco is ideal for those stock applications that you never touch. You can define the inactivity time and customize your home screen looks from the Settings app.
CuttleFish
If you think the 3D Touch interface is too dull and boring, CuttleFish can help. It automatically makes the shortcut background adaptable to the original color of the app. For example, if you long press on Facebook from the home screen, it will show 3D Touch with blurry blue background whereas WhatsApp with has a green background.
Once CuttleFish is installed from Cydia, you can put it to the test immediately. No settings needed to configure.
Snapper 2
Snapper 2 isn’t entirely restricted to the home screen. This tweak is so useful we even have a dedicated post for it. To sum it all up, you can screenshot a portion of your screen and take it anywhere, even display your screenshot within another application.
Take a look below
To learn more about it, click here.
TouchBar
TouchBar is a recently released jailbreak tweak that got its name from the original Touch Bar on the new MacBook Pro that Apple unveiled. This tweak does exactly what its name suggests, adding a fully functioning shortcuts bar at the bottom of your iPhone.
By default, you get three buttons on the navigation. Back, home, and multitasking buttons. The features of TouchBar will change according to the apps you’re using. For example, if you are listening to music, it will present you with another set of buttons which include skip, rewind and pause/play.
| Name | Author | Supported |
|---|---|---|
| Barrel | Aaron Ash | iOS 3 – 10 |
| Edge | CP Digital Darkroom | iOS 9 – 10 |
| Goodges | faku99 | iOS 8, 9 and 10 |
| ReformX | zEstLabs | iOS 10 |
| GlowBoard | Elijah Frederickson | iOS 8 |
| Forcy | Straya Dev Team | iOS 9 |
| Cylinder | Reed Weichler | iOS 4 – 10 |
| Peek-a-Boo | Creatix | iOS 9 |
| Evanesco | CP Digital Darkroom | iOS 8, 9 or 10 |
| CuttleFish | CP Digital Darkroom | iOS 9 and 10 |
| Snapper 2 | Jonathan Winger Lang | iOS 7 – 10 |
| TouchBar | LaughingQuoll | iOS 9 and 10 |
Can I Customize My iPhone Home Screen Without Jailbreak?
Even though your options are still limited having Cydia installed, there is a web-based tool that you can use to customize the overall icons of your home screen. All it does is partially changing the theme of your app icons.
Something like this:
Click here to check out iSkin for your non-jailbroken devices.
For more customization tweaks that extend to other parts of your iPhone, see this list (for notification center) and this (for the Dock).
