Apple knows people want to change the appearance of their app icons. They have seen people go to great lengths for about 17 years to change app icons on their iPhones.
On our computers, we’ve been doing it for much longer, but—for some reason—they make it harder every year. On iPhone, Apple has been making teeny tiny steps toward more customization, and I just don’t understand their hesitation.
Yes, app developers have been able to add alternate app icons for a few years now, but users were limited to the options developers added to each app. So people have turned to Siri Shortcuts to add shortcuts to their home screens with any image they want. Convoluted, but possible.
People who want all their app icons to be pastel are willing to put up with the minor inconvenience. Apple changed the performance for that kind of shortcut to make the transition simpler, so—again—they know people want this.
This week, Apple introduced dark mode app icon functionality and tinted app icon functionality. And I don’t know why it’s necessary to say this but: They are making it much more complicated than it has to be.
I understand why they added this functionality in this way, and I think in theory it could work out, but it won’t work for the pastel app icon crowd. Not with this implementation, though if they used a different gradient map on the same app icon resources developers provide with iOS 18, it could. It’s possible to meet users much closer than Apple is, with very little effort. But—
I just can’t help but point out that it would be the easiest thing ever for them to add a “Choose Custom Icon” menu item to each app icon’s context menu. We already have “Edit Home Screen” and “Remove App” in there. One more line item wouldn’t kill them. And it would give everyone the flexibility they want, maintaining the actual app on their home screen rather than a shortcut of it, which would also negate the perceived need for developers to add every alternate app icon that their users would ever want.
They’re probably not losing users over this, but sometimes I wonder if Apple understands how easy it is for them to increase overall customer satisfaction with stuff like this. People would love it, while costing them close to nothing.
Some features make things more useful, which customers surely appreciate. But there are other features that people are enthusiastic about. Those features turn customers into evangelists. I think this is one of those.

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