Rearranging iPhone home screen using Configurator on Mac – what a disaster
I recently acquired a used iPhone to support the hearing aid capability in my AirPods. I installed most of the apps I'm familiar with on my Android phone, where I've arranged them in folders on a single home screen.
I tried to do the same thing on the iPhone. Getting the apps into folders was easy, but arranging them the way I want on the home screen proved impossible. Every time I tried to move something, everything else was rearranged. The layout wouldn't stay still.
I stumbled on a question/answer that indicated I could configure the home screen on my Mac using Configurator:
re-arrange IOS apps on Mac? - Apple Community
The poster provided detailed instructions. Unfortunately, Configurator suffers from some of the same horrible user interface decisions as the iPhone itself. Moving one folder or app implicitly moves just about everything else. I can't control the precise location of any icon/folder. I decided to temporarily move just about everything to a second screen, then bring icons back one-by-one into the desired layout. I got most of the way there, but every time I tried to drag my Home folder to the second screen, it appeared to duplicate the folder:
Eventually I gave up and just worked with that, figuring I could delete the duplicates after the fact. However, once I applied my imperfect changes, my phone's second screen wasn't filled with duplicate Home folders, but a bunch of apps I didn't even want on my home screen (retrieved from the App Library, I guess). I had to remove them one-by-one (again, a pretty horrible UX, *sigh*).
The phone has a 5x4 grid! Just let me put an icon or app on each point in the grid. If I move an item which leaves a hole, leave it there. Let me fill it, if that's what I want to do. Don't assume a gap is a horrible thing (Apple abhors a vacuum? 🤷🏻)
Is there some other mode for Configurator which allows me full control of the home screen layout? If not, is there some third-party configuration tool in the App Store which uses a more intuitive interface?
MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 15.2