Icon arrangement on iPad
Is there any way to move the icons closer together?
There is too much wasted space with the default spacing.
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Dear msuper69,
You might be happy to hear that there are a few simple steps you can take to rearrange your iPadOS 15 Home Screen. This will let you round-up and herd those wayward icons back into line the way you liked them before you updated your iPad.
Turn it off and turn it on again? No, this iPadOS 15 icon herding workaround isn’t as simple as that I’m afraid - but it nearly is!
And while the following procedure will not return your Home Screen pages to an exact pixel by pixel replica of how they looked in previous iPad operating systems - it almost will!
At the very least, the following steps will let you enjoy a 5x4 20-icon grid pattern again with larger icons and the much wider expansive minimum 12mm gaps between icons that was “lost” by what is now a tighter packed Home Screen regime under iPadOS 15 that occurs when giant widgets are removed.
On completion, you will have your app and folder icons placed back into the exact original sequence and ordered arrangement you previously preferred. The higgledy-piggledy jumbled-up icon mishmash caused by the imposition of the iPadOS 15 5x6 30-icon grid pattern will vanish.
This technique will firmly cement and organise your icons into the old 5x4 20-icon grid pattern regardless of whether you use your iPad in landscape or portrait view.
Following this procedure will also shrink supersized wasted space gaps - that can also occur if Updaters leave iPadOS 15 giant widgets in their default screen locations - and will again return the familiar neater minimum 12mm gaps of previous operating systems.
Take a long look at the screenshots below. Make special note of the 12mm horizontal minimum gaps between icons in the iPadOS 14 Home Screens. Now compare those gaps to the tightly compacted 4mm horizontal gaps in iPadOS 15 that contract when Updaters remove their widgets. This fix brings back (particular) widgets (in a special way) to re-inflate the new restricted iPadOS 15 gaps back up to the minimum 12mm distance enjoyed in previous operating systems.
While the actual measures quoted here refer to an iPad Air 2, the same proportions all apply in percentage terms with different measures across all iPad devices from the mini to the largest Pro models.
If you have yet to master gesture skills like touch, hold, tap and drag or don’t know how to delete icons or widgets, you can find illustrated instructions on how to perform the techniques described here in the latest iPad User Guide below.
https://books.apple.com/gb/book/ipad-user-guide/id1567104892
Now it’s time to get your old iPal back again with your 10-Step Guide that will blow those iPadOS 15 woes away.
1. Confirm Use Large App Icons toggle switch is set at green on position.
2. Delete all iPadOS 15 widgets or drag them off Home Screen workaround page.
3. Arrange Home Screen workaround page so app and or folder icons do not exceed 20, excluding any contained in Dock (as shown in landscape view below).
4. Open App Store. Search Post-it app (as shown below). Tap Post-it icon. Tap GET. Tap Install. Enter password. Tap Sign In.
5. Open Post-it app (on a separate Home Screen page). Tap Create. Tap small default yellow note. Tap personal colour choice from fanned deck. Tap Add + . Tap Cancel. Tap chosen colour square. Tap hollow star. Check star has turned solid black. Quit and forget main Post-it app.
6 Touch and hold Home Screen workaround page. Tap +. Open Post-it widget. Select Single Note widget style (as shown arrowed below). Tap Add Widget. Repeat Tap +, Open Post-it widget, Tap Add Widget sequence until four widgets are added.
7. (1) Rotate iPad to portrait view. (2) Drag four widgets to top of Home Screen workaround page. Tap Done. (3) Use iPad in any orientation. (4) Icon herders can be placed to left or right in landscape view or top or bottom in portrait view. (5) Screenshoot icon herder colour as wallpaper to make them vanish.
8. Repeat steps 3., 6. and 7. for further Home Screen workaround pages as required.
9. Er …
10. That’s it!
This technique makes the new iPadOS 15 screen format much less irritating as it subdues the worst aspects of its distorted perspectives and a severely impaired user interface into the background.
The following screenshots show the improvements that the iPadOS 15-a-14 Style hybrid Home Screens can achieve.
Compare the icon arrangement here above with my wee dab screenshot at the top of this post to see how iPadOS 15 restricted icon gap spaces have now been massively inflated again to three times their size and wayward icons have now been caged back into their old familiar 5x4 fixed grid positions.
Since the above techniques were developed in October 2021, there have now been further advances that make icon herder widgets completely invisible against any original screen wallpaper of choice.
I hope to give more details on the above in a later post to the forum soon.
Yours helpfully,
Jock MacAdam
