When it comes to customizing your iPhone, the first thing that you have to do is to jailbreak it. Doing so allows you to theme the app icons, interfaces, Lock screen, Home screen or pretty much anything else that you want.

While jailbreaking opens the door to endless customizations, it is still possible to customize your iPhone to some extent without being jailbroken. In a video demonstrated by YouTuber iTwe4kz, he shows how you can theme your iPhone’s Home screen by taking advantages of the glitches present in iOS as well as theming websites.

In this article, we’ll show you how to customize iPhone without having to jailbreak it. I’ll recommend that you watch the video below to better understand the steps, but if you prefer the text version, that is also available.

How to Customize iPhone Without Jailbreaking

#1 Hiding the app icon labels

Step 1: Go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Reduce Motion and toggle it on.

Step 2: From the Accessibility pane, go to Increase Contract and turn on Darken Colors.

Step 3: Next up, you have to hide the app icon labels by taking advantage of a bug that is present in iOS 10.

• Open Control Center.
• Swipe up Control Center such that it moves to the middle of the screen. Do not release your fingers off the screens.

• Double press the Home button to open App Switcher.
• Now go back to the Home screen and you’ll notice that the app icon labels in the dock have disappeared.
• Move the next four apps to the dock and repeat the above process to hide their labels. Do this until you have all the app icon labels hidden.

#2 Hiding the Status bar

Just like the previous section, hiding the Status bar involves using a glitch in iOS 10. However, this is not permanent as the Status bar will re-appear when you open an application.

Step 1: Double press the Home button to open the App Switcher.

Step 2: Press and hold the Sleep/Wake button until you see the ‘slide to power off’ screen.

Step 3: Now double press the Home button to go to the Home screen. You’ll notice that the Status bar has disappeared.

#3 Hiding the dock and folder blurs

Step 1: Download and save the wallpaper from here onto your iPhone.

Step 2: Open the Photos app and go to Camera Roll.

Step 3: Open the wallpaper that you just saved. It is black in color.

Step 4: Now set it as your Home screen wallpaper. To do so, tap on the share button and choose Use as Wallpaper > Set > Set Home Screen.

Step 5: Go to the Home screen and you’ll see that the dock and folder icons no longer have a blur background.

#4 Theming the app icons

Step 1: Open Safari on your iPhone.

Step 2: Go to iskin.tooliphone.net.

Step 3: Here you’ll find all the themes that can be installed on your iPhone. The theme that we’ll use is called Neon V2. Find and tap on it to open.

Step 4: Scroll down to the ‘Install theme’ section and tap on Application icons.

Step 5: A list of available themed icons is displayed. Select all the apps that you wish to theme by tapping on them.

• Tip: if you wish to hide the app icon labels, simply tap on the X button next to a selected app’s name.

Step 6: Scroll down to the bottom of the page and tap on Generate theme.

Step 7: You’ll be taken to the profile installation page. Tap on Install.

Step 8: Now go to the Home screen and you’ll find the themed icons added to your Home screen. Arrange them such that they are all placed together.

#5 Setting up the Home screen arrangement and wallpaper

The Home screen setup that you see in the above screenshot involves using blank icons that leave an empty space at the top of the screen. You’ll also change your wallpaper to the one seen in the screenshot, but keep in mind that by changing the wallpaper, the dock and folder blurs will re-appear.

Step 1: Download & save the Home screen wallpaper from here onto your iPhone.

Step 2: Set the downloaded wallpaper as your Lock screen and Home screen wallpaper.

Step 3: Next up, you have to add blank icons to the top of the Home screen to reveal the portion of the wallpaper that says “Dream”. Here’s how to do it:

• Go to the Home screen and tap and hold on an app icon until it starts wiggling.
• Swipe over to an empty page and take a screenshot.
• Now open Safari and go to iempty.tooliphone.net.
• Tap on ‘Create BLANK icons’.

• Tap on Add.

• Press Choose File > Photo Library, and then select the screenshot that you just took.

• Once the photo is uploaded and the blank icons created, scroll down the page and you’ll view a preview of your Home screen with blank icons on it.
  • Tap on the blank icon labelled ‘1×1’.
  • Tap on the Share button and choose ‘Add to Home screen’.
  • Tap on Add and it will be added to your Home screen.
  • Place the blank icon in its actual position, as was shown in the Home screen preview.
  • Repeat the above process for the remaining blank icons, until you’ve added all the icons from the first two rows.

That’s it. You should now have a customized Home screen that looks exactly like the first screenshot shown in this article. All of this has been done without even jailbreaking your iPhone.

Please share the screenshot of your customized iPhone in the comments section. If you have any questions or face issues, let us know drop us a line in the comments.