iOS 27 Customization Guide: My Easiest Setup Yet
This iOS 27 customization guide is built around a simple idea: make the iPhone look completely different without turning the setup process into a nightmare. The final home screen uses a split wallpaper, Not Boring Weather widgets, updated Vision OS icons, a media-player-style dock, and an optional dark mode shortcut. Despite how cool it looks, this is hands-down the easiest iOS setup I’ve made for the channel.
it is hands-down the easiest iOS setup to recreate that I've ever made for the channel.
— Sam BeckmanThe whole look starts with depth, not complexity
On the surface, the wallpaper looks like a very simple black-and-white split-screen backdrop. A flat version still looks pretty great, and that was actually where I first landed when designing this home screen, but after a day or two it felt like something was missing. The shadow variants fix that by adding just enough depth behind the widgets and icons to make the setup feel more intentional.
I put these wallpapers into a small pack called Split. It includes flat versions of all three variants with no shadows, plus the shadow variants I’m using for my own setup. Because this was a much simpler pack to put together than some of my previous wallpaper packs, I made it available completely for free, with the option to add any price if you’re feeling generous.
Set up the split wallpaper on the lock screen and home screen
Once the Split wallpaper pack is downloaded and transferred onto your iPhone, start from the lock screen. Long press, tap the plus button, choose Photos, and select the flat wallpaper with white on the left and black on the right. For some reason, iOS 27 can automatically scale wallpapers up by default, so pinch in slightly and release to make sure the alignment is correct.
For my lock screen, I also like expanding the clock, increasing the clock weight all the way to the right, and moving the glass slider all the way to the right. After that, tap Add, choose Customize Home Screen, select Photo, and pick the matching shadow wallpaper. Pinch in slightly again so everything lines up, then hit Done.
Back on the home screen, long press, tap Customize, then Customize again. Change the icon setting to Large, which hides the widget and icon labels, then set the icons to Dark and tap the little sun icon so the wallpaper doesn’t get tinted. At that point, the wallpaper side of the setup is complete.
Use Not Boring Weather widgets instead of custom Widgy widgets
One of my biggest goals with this setup was to make it far simpler to recreate than my past home screens. So, for the first time in a very long time, I’m not using any custom-made Widgy widgets at all. Instead, I’m using pre-made widgets from my current weather app of choice, Not Boring Weather.
The Not Boring apps are some of the most aesthetically pleasing apps you’ll ever have the pleasure of using, but there is a catch: if you want to use their beautiful widgets, you need to upgrade to one of their subscription plans. And to be fair, these ain’t super cheap, so I do not blame anyone for not wanting to go down that route.
If you don’t want to use the Not Boring Weather subscription widgets, I did find a couple of Not Boring-inspired Widgy widgets through the Widgy explore page. For my setup, though, I’m using the Not Boring Weather app widgets directly.
If you’ve already had Not Boring Weather installed and changed the skin in the past, open the app settings and switch the skin to Graphite. Then add three widgets to the home screen: Forecast, Moon Phase, and Current Weather Conditions. I place Forecast at the top, Moon Phase in the middle, and Current Weather Conditions at the bottom.
After adding those widgets, move any remaining app icons onto a second page, tap the page dots, and uncheck any pages you’re not going to use. That leaves one clean page with the three weather widgets sitting on the left side of the split wallpaper, which is exactly where the shadow elements start to make the whole design look seriously cool.
The updated Vision OS icon pack cuts out a huge step
For the icons, I went back to my Vision OS icon pack rather than creating a completely new pack from scratch. The original version was designed as purely circular icons, which looked clean and minimal back when we could fake a transparent look with third-party apps. With the newer iOS design components, that old workaround doesn’t really apply anymore.
So I recreated the Vision OS icons with the same design language, but now with square backgrounds instead of circular ones. The beauty of that change is that the image files can be used directly inside the Shortcuts app. There’s no need for a third-party transparent icons app workaround, which cuts out an entire long step from the setup process.
I’m not releasing the square versions as a separate icon pack. They’ve simply been added to the Vision OS icon pack on my website, so if you purchased the pack in the past, you can log back in and get access to the new icons. If you haven’t purchased it before, you’ll get both the circle and square icons.
One quick tip: only transfer the app icons you’re actually going to use from your computer to your phone. Don’t dump the entire icon pack onto your iPhone if you don’t need it, because keeping the files limited makes the process much more streamlined.
Create the custom app icons in Shortcuts
To set up each icon, open the Shortcuts app, tap the plus icon, and choose the Open App action. Tap App, search for the app you want to add, then rename the shortcut so it matches the app and icon. That rename step just keeps everything organized later.
- Tap the shortcut name, then choose Add to Home Screen.
- Tap Image, choose Photo, and select the matching Vision OS icon.
- Tap Choose, then the tick icon to add it.
- Long press the home screen and drag the new icon into position.
Repeat that process for every app icon you want on the first page. When tapped, these icons launch straight into their respective apps, so the animations are preserved and intact. The vibrant icons against the dark side of the wallpaper contrast really nicely with the more monochromatic weather widgets on the left.
Turn the dock into a media player instead of hiding it
Back on older versions of iOS, strategically designed wallpapers could essentially hide the dock area completely. With liquid glass, the dock remains visible no matter what wallpaper you use, so instead of trying to hide it, you’re better off making use of it. I think you’re better off accentuating it.
That’s where the bottom media player idea came from. The four dock icons I’m using are included in the updated Vision OS icon pack, alongside some alternate versions. Three of them are simple media controls made in Shortcuts: Play/Pause, Skip Back, and Skip Forward.
- Create a Play/Pause shortcut and add the dark play icon.
- Create a Skip Back shortcut and add the matching icon.
- Create a Skip Forward shortcut and add the matching icon.
- Use the stop-style icon for the Change Theme shortcut.
The last dock icon looks like a stop button, but the Play/Pause shortcut already covers that job. So I use the stop button to activate a custom Change Theme shortcut instead. Once the four icons are created, batch select them and drag them into the dock.
Add the dark mode version with a Focus automation
If you’re happy using one wallpaper all the time, the setup is basically done. But if you want the wallpaper to switch to the dark mode variant according to your system theme, or when you tap the Change Theme shortcut in the dock, it only takes a couple of extra steps.
First, create a second lock screen using the flat version of the dark wallpaper, then customize its home screen with the matching dark wallpaper that includes shadows. Match the same clock style if you want the two setups to feel consistent, then switch the home screen icon size to Large and set the icons to Dark.
Next, open Settings, go to Focus, tap the plus icon, and create a custom Focus mode named dark. That name matters: if you want the Change Theme shortcut to work properly, the Focus mode needs to be called dark like mine. Choose an icon, tap Customize Focus, then assign the dark wallpaper under the customize screen section.
I also like adding a schedule for this Focus mode. In my setup, it activates each night at 8:00 p.m. and turns off at 7:00 a.m. in the morning, but obviously you can tweak that timing however you like.
The final step is adding a Focus filter. Under Focus Filter, tap Add Filter, choose Dark Mode, keep it selected as Dark, and tap Add. Now the dark mode wallpaper can activate automatically on your schedule, and the custom dock icon can manually switch the theme as well.
Final setup: simple, clean, and surprisingly quick
The finished iOS 27 home screen has a split wallpaper with proper depth, three clean weather widgets, square Vision OS icons, and a dock that actually looks like it belongs there. The best part is that the whole thing avoids the most annoying older workarounds: no custom Widgy build is required, and the square icons work directly through Shortcuts.
This is the kind of setup I wanted for iOS 27: visually punchy, but not painfully complicated. You still get the fancy dark mode switch, the media-player dock, and the beautiful icon contrast, but the actual recreation process is far more straightforward than my older home screen designs.
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