iOS 15 will let you put multiple versions of one app on your Home screen

By Oliver Haslam
published

Apple Ipad Ipados15 Widgets
Apple Ipad Ipados15 Widgets (Image credit: Apple)

What you need to know

  • iOS 15 will allow multiple versions of the same app on one Home screen.
  • There's no actual use for it, though.

Apple announced iOS 15 during yesterday's WWDC event and we're still learning little bits and pieces about the update. It won't be available until later this year, but developers are already testing an early beta and one feature that's popped up is the ability to place multiple versions of the same app on your Home screen at once.

First spotted by 9to5Mac, the feature isn't actually a feature as such, but is instead a byproduct of Focus. Focus allows users to configure multiple Home screens based on their current activity which in turn means you'll need to be able to have the same app live on multiple screens. You can see where this is going, can't you?

One way to do this is with the App Library. With an app already placed on your home screens, go to the App Library, locate the same application and long-press to drag it. You can then place it onto a home screen and your existing icon will not be removed.

Yup. You're supposed to set up multiple Home screens for use in different situations, but you can just put all of your icons on one Home screen. You know, in case you really like it.

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We'll see if Apple finds a way to stop this from happening because I can imagine it confusing some people when it happens by accident. But wouldn't it be cool if we could have each version of the app behave slightly differently? Say, one Twitter app signed into a personal account and another signed into a work one?

You can have that one for free, Apple.

We might not be able to get your an iPhone for free, but these are the best iPhone deals we've come across. Why don't you treat yourself?

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.