How to change icon sizes on iPad with iOS 15

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