Negative comment warning:
Color styling in iOS 18 is insane and a rare case where I think “Steve would roll in his grave” applies instead of usual hyperbole.
It just doesn’t work that well, and the reason Google pulls it off is Material You is a theme engine beyond the app icons, and it works quite well in that case. But really Android is more reliant on App Libraries, so if you have 4-8 icons on home page that are themed you can kind of muscle memory your way into them even if impinges some easy discrimination and is silly.
It’s just a different dynamic. That doesn’t mean I think the themed icons are a good idea there either, they really aren’t for the simple reason that it’s a impediment to quickly discriminating been apps, but just that the damage is much easier to mitigate on Android both aesthetically and functionally because of how home screens are more commonly used.
I’m honestly just shocked by that from Apple. It really looks bad. You don’t have to use it obviously, but I think there’s something to what it says about the design teams in software that they allowed this, some limited guidance and parentalism in an OS is good.
Basically my only iOS 18 complaint I guess.
