Mister Icon's Blog

Space is important. None of us like to be cramped up.

That's one of the key reasons why first class costs so much on an aeroplane. Space is a luxury.

But spacING is important too. And after 17 iterations of iPhone software, it appears that Apple finally agrees!

In this short article I discuss the implementation of home screen spaces in the brand new iOS/iPadOS 18, and how it compares to the spacers that have been always been available in the Mister Icon app.

Apple's newest innovation, the Apple Vision Pro, has just been released in the US. It will be interesting to see how the new device is received.

The Mister Icon app will not be available on this new device, at least for now, as the visionOS operating system currently does not provide the functionality needed for the app to work. Perhaps one day it will, but not at the moment.

With that important announcement out of the way, please read on if you are interested in my thoughts about the new product.

In my previous article, I detailed how Apple has now allowed third-party web browsers to implement ‘Add to Home Screen’ functionality; from iOS/iPadOS 16.4 onwards.

But if you managed to get through that—admittedly long—article, I wonder if you happened to notice a rather large elephant in the room?

In this much shorter blog post, I discuss what that elephant is.

Since the early days of the iPhone, we have been able to add webclip bookmark icons to our home screens via the Safari web browser.

And with the release of iOS/iPadOS 16.4, Apple introduced the ability for third-party web browsers to offer such an Add to Home Screen feature too!

Here I discuss what this means for you, and for Mister Icon.

User's manuals are fast becoming a forgotten art. Many devices these days ship without any proper instructions at all.

In some cases, we are directed online to find the bare minimum of information that will let us learn how to use our devices, but in other cases the digital user guides are very good and in some cases surpass their printed equivalents.

Here I look into user guides for Apple devices, and where to find them.

Apple TV devices can provide access to a wonderful assortment of movies and TV shows, from a range of different streaming services.

And the great thing is that most of the content available on these streaming services now contains subtitles or closed captions.

Here's some information about the different ways you can enable captions on your Apple TV device, including a neat little accessibility trick that you might not know about.

Mathematics can be fun, and it can be used to calculate the number of possible wallpaper colour combinations in the Mister Icon app.

With the version 3.0 update, the number of possible colours increased dramatically.

Warning! Crazily big maths equations ahead!

Even though Apple has a generally well-deserved reputation for user-friendliness, there are still ways that user interaction with Apple devices can be improved with a bit of thought and time.

In this article, I discuss how my Mister Icon app can help you make an easy-to-use home screen on your iPhone or iPad.

This can make the everyday use of your mobile device just that little bit easier, and can be a good way for you to assist others too.

Helping a less-technically-savvy friend or family member to purchase, set up and use an iPhone or iPad can be an important task.

Modern mobile devices have the potential to significantly improve many people's lives, but the wrong device can be a source of frustration.

Here I offer some suggestions about how you can help others to find the right iPhone or iPad to suit their needs.

Thank you for visiting my web site!

This is the part of my site where I plan to write about a range of interesting topics, some of which might be directly related to my icon label app, and others which might be related to technology in general, or something else entirely.

Since Mister Icon is an app designed for iPhone and iPad devices, I'll be focused primarily on Apple technology.

Each blog post (including this one) will have a Read More button, a heading and a picture. Click any of these to be taken to the full article.