An iOS 14 Home Screen Setup With Widgets and App Library

Following the public release of iOS 14 last week, iPhone users are presented with some new options to set up their home screens. Apple announced that widgets, which were previously only available in the today view, can now be resized and placed anywhere on the home screen. Widgets can also be added to stacks or smart stacks, allowing users to access multiple widgets from the same place by scrolling through these stacks. Another new feature that I will be focusing on in this article is the App Library. This is a new page on the home screen which automatically organises all apps into folders based on their categories and allows the most used apps the be accessed quickly.

As these are some significant changes, I believed it was time to completely rethink the way in which I organised and set up my home screen. Before getting into my new setup, I will briefly describe my old setup and explain why I am making changes to this.

Obviously, personal preference plays a huge role in home screen setups as everyone uses their iPhones in different ways and for different purposes. I fall into the category of users that use their iPhone for both entertainment and work/productivity purposes. Therefore, the requirements for my setup were:

I’ll start things off with the dock as this is probably one of the most important parts of any home screen setup and hasn’t changed in my new setup. Due to the dock being visible on every page of the home screen, I think this should carry the four most accessed apps (determined by myself rather than Siri suggestions). My dock includes the phone app (this could also be replaced with iMessage), my email app, Safari, and the Reminders app. These are not necessarily the apps that I spend the most time in, but those that I open most often throughout the day and could not live without.

In terms of home screen pages, I had two under my old setup. I included my most essential and most frequently used apps on the first page. The second page was filled with folders in which I included all of my apps, that were not already on the first page, sorted by category. This page was very similar to the new App Library but had to be manually updated and did not have a folder for Siri suggestions. This is where the new App Library comes in very handy as it replaces this page.

Under the new setup, I only have one page with certain widgets and apps. However, with one swipe I can now access all my apps in the App Library. This allows me to display some useful information through widgets together with my most essential apps all on one page. At the same time, I can quickly access every other app on my iPhone.

At the top of my home screen, I have a widget stack which lets me swipe through to get a quick overview of my unread emails, calendar events, and tasks/reminders. This is extremely useful as I frequently check these items throughout the day and no longer have to open three different apps.

Below the widget stack is the second and last widget on my home screen. I have decided to go with the small battery widget as I often use my AirPods and Apple Watch on the go. I feel like having all my device’s battery levels in one place is quite useful.

The rest of this home screen page is filled with some essential apps such as the calendar, camera, Home app, and my password manager. I have also added four folders for quick access to even more apps on the same home screen page:

With this setup I am able to get information and access to my most-used apps all from the same home screen page. To open any other app, I either swipe to the App Library or swipe down and use the Spotlight search to open apps. These are both incredibly fast ways of opening apps.

Both widgets and the App Library in iOS 14 have helped me set up my iPhone in a much more productive and time-saving way. If you haven’t downloaded iOS 14 yet, I would highly recommend doing so and I’d love to hear about how you use these new features on your home screens.

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