// 9TO5MAC — MOBILE & WEB
It’s time for iOS to have its own Material You
Over the years, Apple has only added more and more customization to iOS. First, we got all of the lock screen personalization back with iOS 16. That was followed up with icon color tinting in iOS 18, clear icons in iOS 26, and a full-on Liquid Glass slider in iOS 27.
The iPhone has become more and more individualistic as time has gone on, and that’s a great thing. Since we can already tint our icons on our home screen – why not extend that to the rest of the operating system?
iOS 27 hasn’t even released to the public yet, so perhaps I’m getting a bit ahead of myself for thinking about what Apple could do for the next iteration of software. Nonetheless, I feel like making thematic app color schemes on top of just light and dark mode would be a logical next step.
I’m essentially asking for a replica of Material You on iOS, except instead of being wallpaper-based, it’d be icon color-based – though Apple would probably also offer an option for wallpaper matching. Apple last year introduced an option to have your icons match the color of the MagSafe case you’re using, which could also tie in nicely with this color theming.
Also of note: Apple introduced color themes in Xcode, their IDE for building Apple software, earlier this year at WWDC. There’s a plethora of good looking options there – why not bring that level of whimsy to the iPhone? Even the Mac, as things stands today, allows you to set a system-wide tint color for third party apps.
WAIT when did they add full color themes to Xcode?? pic.twitter.com/HdCqgmPboT
All in all, I just think color theming on iOS would look really good, and would serve as another step in the direction of allowing more customization.
How would you feel about color themes on iOS and iPadOS? Let us know in the comments.
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