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the text and icons are absurdly small. even the use large app icons in settings does not help or change anything at all
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
PadOS 15: New “Use-Large-App-Icons” toggle switch to change display size of app and folder icons has serious software malfunction on iPad mini 4
Can any Apple experts please solve the following new iPadOS 15 software problem that I believe is infuriating millions of iPad mini owners who have less than perfect 20/20 eyesight?
After updating the iPadOS 14.8 software on my iPad mini 4 to iPadOS 15 in the UK on the 21st of September 2021 all my app and folder icons were made irreversibly tiny. A new replacement icon enlargement control method now provided in IPadOS 15 is malfunctioning.
My separate stand-alone app symbols are still (just about) identifiable to me on my home screen by their distinctive colours and designs when I squint my eyes and look through my spectacles. But the previously larger printed identifying subtitles underneath all my similar looking folder icons are now too minuscule to read or identify easily at a long distance glance when picking up my iPad - as are all the app symbols these unopened folder icons also display that have now been made microscopically small.
In all older iPad operating systems software up to and including iPadOS 14.8, app and folder icon sizes were controllable at - Settings > Home Screen & Dock > Home Screen > App Icons. This window displayed a twin tick button choice underneath two screen graphics depicting “More” (smaller) icons and “Bigger” (fewer) icons on two simulated Home Screen iPads placed side by side. Choosing the More option allowed 30 smaller icons to be displayed on the Home Screen while choosing the Bigger option allowed 20 larger icons to be displayed.
As explained above, this old icon size control feature has now been replaced in iPadOS 15 at - Settings > Home Screen & Dock > Home Screen with a simple on-off > “Use Large Icons” toggle switch. But operating this switch has no effect whatsoever to either enlarge or reduce the size of the new smaller app and folder icons that remain fixed at their miniature given size.
To be clear, and for the avoidance of any doubt, this is not an issue about zooming controls that severely visually impaired iPad owners may be compelled to use in the Accessibility settings. I do not want, or need, to start faffing about to zoom into part of my home screen and magnify and telescope only a small part of the entire clear screen view that I previously enjoyed.
The fact that the new “Use Large Icons” toggle switch exists and has been incorporated at the same location to replace the previous icon size control method, presumably means senior Apple engineers intended to keep this functionality available to many older iPad mini owners with poorer eyesight.
Accepting a retrograde loss of the key functionality of EFFORTLESSLY seeing my own folder icons on my iPad mini and using the new larger app “organising’ folder icons now provided by Apple in iPadOS 15 is a non-starter for me. The very limited and narrow-minded built-in folders that are offered, such as “Suggestions”?, “Recently Added”?, “Music”, “Games” and “Other”?!?! could not accommodate the wide spectrum of subjects in my easily accessible 20 separate folder icon categories.
My folder icons have distinctive titles such as “On Air” for TV, streaming, YouTube and radio services. “Market Square” is for shops and delivery services. Different folders contain subjects as broad as reference information; rarely used Apple apps; books and libraries; medical apps; hobbies and interests; banking and financial matters; and many, many more distinctive subject areas that means everything on my iPad is easy to find without hardly a microsecond of extra thought. Thus before iPadOS 15: Tap! - I’ve opened cookery recipes for diabetics in my “Bon Appetite” folder; Tap! - apps in my “Way Out” folder show local bus and train times, Tap! - I see event dates from my harmonica interest group and then in the same “Hobby Horse” folder the new parts I need for my old vintage car. Tap! - my “Stop Press” folder opens the newspaper and magazine journals I like. Tap! - my “Fun Fair” folder only has two games, cryptic crosswords and chess. Now after iPadOS 15 I have to waste time squinting to see what I’m doing and to see where I’m going.
Suggestions to solve the issue by buying a bigger iPad with larger icons is also not an option for me as I chose the iPad mini 4 because of its compact size on purpose.
Thank you very much for reading this post. Any help to resolve the issue raised here would be very warmly welcomed indeed.
Kind regards,
seaniconsize
Dear Llepore1952,
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
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, Apple botched this for all iPad mini users - losing 25% of he width of the home screen!
We are really going backwards here with stupid improvements losing functionality… sad when you look at Apple stocks seems that we are encouraging mediocrity!
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 agree 100%. The latest Apple update (15) is a complete mess. I absolutely hate the new look of the Home Screen pages. The icons are all bunched together and there is no way as a user to modify . The toggle to have “large icons” is useless. I want to be able to modify the look of my Home Screen page(s).
The person who came up with these modifications needs to be fired.
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.
Apple provides a method for you to leave constructive suggestions, feature requests, and other non-rant comments at https://www.apple.com/feedback/
Adjusting text size to 110-120% not fixing horibbly small text on the widgets and some notifications.
Thanks for the tip. I think the reason a lot of us post here is not so much to vent, but to see if other users have experience and have found a work around or fix to an issue.
Totally agree with this…. It’s sending me nuts!
great summary of the problem
How to change icon sizes on iPad with iOS 15
