Apple’s iOS 18 update is a big one. You can tint and change the colors of your app icons, freely place apps/widgets on your home screen, customize your lock screen controls, and more. There’s a lot to dig into.
One of the other big features is the ability to fully customize the Control Center, and admittedly, I’ve largely ignored it since I downloaded the iOS 18 beta months ago. But last Friday after work, I took some time to dive headfirst into the Control Center on my iPhone 16 and completely rearrange it. After about 30 minutes of tinkering with things, I think I created the perfect Control Center setup.
How I set up my Control Center
Without further ado, this is my new Control Center. Starting top from bottom, I have the media playback control at the very top and resized to be larger than the small square Apple gives you by default. I like how it prominently highlights the album artwork of whatever I’m listening to, plus the progress bar that shows how much time is left in the song/podcast that’s playing.
Below is the new connectivity control added in iOS 18, with easy access to airplane mode, Wi-Fi, personal hot spot, and more. I know some people don’t like it, but I enjoy being able to tap into the control for additional settings like Bluetooth, VPN, etc. Next to that are brightness and volume sliders, positioned perfectly so I can easily adjust them with my thumb.
Moving down, we have six of my most used controls, resized to be a bit larger so they’re even easier to tap. I have controls for my Focus modes, ring/silent toggle, QR code scanner, Shazam, screen recorder, and the calculator app.
At the bottom are a few additional controls I don’t use quite as often, but still want access to. These include the screen rotation lock, low power mode, Apple TV remote, and Apple Watch finder. I like having these in my Control Center, but since I use them much less frequently, I have them resized to a small circle.
Finally, all of my smart home controls live on a separate page with a full-screen widget giving me access to everything I need — including individual smart lights, my HomePods, and a Work scene that turns on my office lights and turns off all the other lights in my apartment.
It wasn’t easy getting here
While I love how my Control Center looks, getting it to this point wasn’t easy. As Christine Romero-Chen mentioned in her iOS 18 impressions article last month, the editing process for the Control Center is a mess.
I’m am very very sorry, but iOS 18 Control Centre is the buggiest shit I have ever used 😍
You may have some fun watching me SUFFERING for 1 whole minute 🥰 pic.twitter.com/0BspQNksix
— Into Galaxy 🇺🇦 (@IntoGalaxyy) September 18, 2024
I’ve also encountered numerous instances where controls randomly disappeared after I moved or resized them. There have been other times when I moved a control, but iOS still thinks it’s there, so I have a blank part of the page that I can’t add anything to. It’s incredibly frustrating, and the video above does a great job showing just how bad it is.
Worth your time and patience
I love everything about how I created my Control Center. I listen to a lot of podcasts throughout the day (it’s football season, and I need to keep up with NFL Daily), so having a large and prominent control for media playback is fantastic. A well-placed brightness slider is critical, and larger controls for my most-used features are incredibly handy.
On a more subjective note, I think it’s a visually pleasing setup. It starts with a large control at the top, then differently shaped sliders and the connectivity control hub, followed by a symmetrical row of medium-sized controls and a row of smaller ones at the bottom. You may hate it, but I think it looks excellent.
That’s the best part about iOS 18’s Control Center: You can create it to look however you want. I shared a screenshot of my Control Center setup on Threads and got multiple replies about how other people designed theirs. You could create a slight variation of the setup I made or go with something completely different. It’s entirely up to you, and it’s a level of freedom we seldom see from Apple.