How to change icon sizes on iPad with iOS 15

First, let me thank the OP for detailing the problem so well.

However, this answer from Apple doesn't have anything to do with the problem at hand.

The problem: Turning the setting "Use Large App Icons" on and off does nothing. I have 6 rows of icons with it on and 6 rows of icons with it off. The setting does absolutely nothing.

I added widgets to the top row and it did nothing to space out the icons any better. Neither did the ‘use large icons’ setting. I still have 1 inch of unused screen space around my icons on the iPad mini. It about the size of my my iPhone screen but on an iPad mini with lots of unused screen space. Oh how I wish I could go back to iOS 14.

Yes, I really do miss the way the Home Screen worked in iPadOS 14. I do like the widgets in iPadOS 15, but I liked the arrangement better in 14. Or better yet, on Samsung you can chose your Home Screen grid and chose how many app icons are on a page. You can chose:

4x4

4x5

5x5

Correction, adding widgets in no way changes the fact that the "Use Large App Icons" setting does nothing to change the appearance of the home screen. Perhaps as you state, a picture will be the thousand words that'll help you understand what we're saying. As you can see, my home screen looks no different with the setting on or off. We're not looking for a work around, we're looking for a fix...

Dear iPadOS 15 Updaters,

Take a look at the original post: I got my old iPadOS 14 bigger app and folder icon Home Screen back again … just posted a few minutes ago, for mention of a solution to all our problems.

Yours helpfully,

Jock MacAdam

Can you give us a simple bullet point on how to achieve success? Out of all that was written in that post, this is the only thing I saw about resolving the problem but this doesn't work for me. Nothing pokes it's head through and I'm not very familiar with Harry Potter but I think I would know wood paneling if I saw it.

"You tap a clear spot on your Home Screen. Hey Presto! Something

instantly pokes its head through the wall like a scene in Harry Potter.

You tap it again and it disappears behind the dark wood panelling while

your iPadOS 14 style-screen snaps back to that old familiar 5x4 20-icon

grid pattern with all your icons in exactly the order and places you

want them to stay in."

Yes I agree. We buy a. iPad mini for a larger screen and the screen is the size of a large iPhone. It sucks. I think it has to do with widgets. If we don’t use widgets they should allow us to use the full screen. I’d gladly give up widgets to have my old screen back.

You have that right. Just doing what they want without regard to users. Give us back full size for apps. Some of us older users can use the larger images….and that is only the half of it. Many apps no longer work properly with the new 15.2. Some stall, others flash off, etc. did Apple even Beta text the new version.

The widgets were the first thing I turned off, I can careless about a widget taking up resources...

I know the ball gets dropped, that happens. How do we get them to fix it? We just got a new release but no fix.

I’ve always been an Android guy. Specifically Samsung.

one of the main reasons is customization. I swear, using android (and Samsung made their own skin for android called One UI) you can customize anything you want. Wallpaper, system colors, Lock Screen, clock, status bar, app icons, themes, and you can even use your own home screens downloaded from the App Store. That’s just a couple of things you can customize. I also love that I never have any bugs or issues, and I have issues like this and like bugs on my iOS/iPadOS devices. There are also many other features that I like from android.

don’t get me wrong, apple makes great software, great products, and great service. Mixing it together you get a great ecosystem.

but every time I try an apple device, I find myself wanting to go back to Samsung.

(except the computers, which apple makes the best computers you can get)

This is not an issue with zoom. The issue is that I had all my icons arranged to find what I wanted easily. That was when there were 6 columns of icons. Now it is frozen into 4 columns and I can't find anything. Icon size and text size aren't an issue with me, but when every apple product I have owned to date allowed adjusting to 4, 5 or 6 columns and now it is frozen at 4 columns with no adjustment option is ludicrous. Even the zoom example shows 6 columns in the illustration. Change that part back please I hate this update!!!!

Same here! Samsung is awesome. I have the S22 Ultra and it is a beast, and I can change the icon layout to 5 columns or less. This lock at 4 columns on my ipad in the new update sucks! Everything Apple I ever had, iPad and phone always gave options to change icon layout, but now to lock it at 4 is ludicrous.

Adjusting text size to 110-120% not fixing horibbly small text on the widgets and some notifications.

Totally agree with this…. It’s sending me nuts!

great summary of the problem

Yes they do need to fix the problem, but know that it’s not just the Mini. I have a large iPad Pro and have the same problem with 15.1