I had to update my iOS to 16 to pair with my watch. The lock screen is now uglier, but whatever. However the watch is now charging on my wife's watch dock and I wanted to see if I could check my watch battery level on my phone. There is, if I get some widget. So I went to download it. For some reason I thought it would be a normal app icon that appears on the last page of my phone screens. But no, it's a big-a$$ widget that appeared right on the first page, basically shifting all my nicely-ordered icons elsewhere. When I went to move it to the last page, it left a gaping hole and the screwed up re-order. What's worse is that there are app icons simply missing and I don't know where they went.

I just want to go back to the way the phone looked an hour ago. I do bleeb I'm screwed.

I think we have all been there. It's a process. You will find the icons, and they will be where you want them. I miss having to be able to arrange app icons on my Mac for the iPhone. But did you notice when you update to IOS 16 that the Current Background lock screen stayed as a choice. But mine was a bunch of fishes, that if you held the screen they would swim. Now they no longer move. But I did configure a nice looking lock screen, that includes AAPL, and Weather.

But still waiting on an update to fix my DICTATION in any app.

Feel your frustration, but I bet by this time, you have played with it, and found your apps, and all will be good.

Thank you for the encouraging words. Although maybe I should look at this as a way to houseclean a bit. I miss the days of being able to juggle icons around in iTunes, but that's going way back now. Thankfully I have a couple of unintentional screenshots of my home screen so I can at least recreate the first page. As for the missing icons/apps, it's not as if they just moved to a different screen; I don't see them on any of the screens.

-edit-

BTW, yes it did keep my custom lock screen, but it changed that somewhat elegant clock on it to a fugly fat one. Haven't figured out a way to change that back, though I'm sure there is.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/23/2022 09:54AM by wurm.

I used to love installing beta OS on my Mac, never had a problem for years. And then about 2 years ago, while on Apple's beta program, did some update and it broke so many things. I forget what I did to correct the problem (probably did a clean install), but that taught me the lesson.

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M1 2020 Mac mini (16G 2T) • Ventura 13.x • Dual 25" Acer 1440p LCDs • M1 2020 13" MBAir (256G 8G) •

I've always thought it would be helpful if iOS had a "show where this app is / take me to this app in my sea of screens and folders" function.

Apparently, you can click and hold and then drag the app from the search function though to place it somewhere else! But that also doesn't seem to work as you'd think it would!

Now I appear to have 2 Instagram app icons! It's like the click/hold/move function from the search results created a duplicate/alias of the app instead of just moving the original app!

You'll hopefully get used to the ugly, thick clock text. I have, almost. I wonder if the change had to do with the "always on" screen for the 14 Pro. Since the screen dims in "always on" mode, maybe they made the clock bolder so it'd be easier to read (at the expense of the rest of us!).

Well, I was able to get the clock text back to sort of normal.

As for the apps, I thought they may have been hidden in the App Library. But searching there says they don't exist. My home page was a full page of apps I used most frequently. As of right now, half of them are there, and in the position they were before. But the rest of the page is blank. The second screen is full with everything as it was. The third, fourth and fifth screens have exactly half of the icons that were there before.

I guess now it appears I have plans for the weekend.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/23/2022 03:11PM by wurm.

I wish I could help but I don’t see how.
You are aware of the App Library, and I’ll just remind you that you can go to the App Store, click on your icon at the top right, and click on purchased. There are two tabs, for all apps and not on this phone.
Oh, and there’s a setting on setting/home screen for the behavior of newly downloaded apps. Mine’s set to add to home screen, and the other option is app lib only.
One last, the quickest way to get to home screen (and to move around settings or apps) it’s to hit the search field (which I got rid of, prefer the classic pull down) and type Home Screen.
Anyway…



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/23/2022 11:16AM by rich in distress.

Try restarting your phone if you haven’t yet. If not, start manually moving your icons and see if anything changes.

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Formerly known as Dennis R

Something similar happened when I (finally) updated my iPad from iOS 14 to iOS 15 this week. After the install, a number of new widgets were displayed at the top of the display, pushing all my existing icons down. The icons did not slide back up when I removed the widgets — I had to manually rebuild my Desktop to its prior state.

Furthermore, some of my folders had been eliminated, with the apps that had been located within the folders redistributed on the Desktop. Again, I had to manually recreate these folders.

A message to Apple: GET YOUR @#$%& TOGETHER. Be the Apple of yore. This sort of thing used to be beneath you. It’s no secret that the quality of your software has drastically decreased — do better, starting now.

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It is what it is.

Yeah, it's frustrating. Interestingly enough, my 3rd 4th and 5th screen pages are now full (after a few restarts), but that first page still has only half of what was there before. And they've moved. Worse, my home dock on the bottom has changed.

It seems like it would be such a simple thing to be able to 'lock' a page setup so that you couldn't even accidentally screw it up. I know in the past I've tried to move an app to a different location and had it get sucked into a newly created folder with whatever other app I happened to be near. Such a pain.

Yes, I know; first world problem.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/23/2022 02:04PM by wurm.

I’ve been bitten enough times now that near the top of my to do list is a complete desktop (Is it a ‘desktop’ on the phone or is there a swoopy iWord we’re supposed to use?) reorg and then a screenshot of each page to be kept in a seperate, labeled folder in my photos app.

“It just works.”

Uh huh. Okay…

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The rabbit says "I dunno. I'm only here because of Autocorrect.


National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
As of July 16, 2022, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is now available by simply dialing 988. The previous number, 1-800-273-8255, will remain active.

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

Quote
Blankity Blank
I’ve been bitten enough times now that near the top of my to do list is a complete desktop (Is it a ‘desktop’ on the phone or is there a swoopy iWord we’re supposed to use?) reorg and then a screenshot of each page to be kept in a seperate, labeled folder in my photos app.

“It just works.”

Uh huh. Okay…

Yeah, that's what I'll be doing once I get this mess squared away. Who'd have thunk we'd need to do that.

"Never update"

Chopper

Quote
chopper
"Never update"

Chopper

I certainly wasn't planning on it. I was dismayed when the new Apple Watch necessitated it.

Quote
chopper
"Never update"

Chopper

My retired-tech wife always believed that. Then one of the financial orgs required 2FA and that required that she update her MacBook Pro from whatever the OS was in 2014 when she got it to whatever it was in 2020. I never heard such language coming from such a sweet lady!

Quote
wurm
I had to update my iOS to 16 to pair with my watch. The lock screen is now uglier, but whatever. However the watch is now charging on my wife's watch dock and I wanted to see if I could check my watch battery level on my phone. There is, if I get some widget. So I went to download it.

You don't need to download any widget. Battery level monitoring for all your connected devices is natively supported for the Lock Screen and the Home Screen ("Widget Stack"):

[support.apple.com]

Quote

it's a big-a$$ widget that appeared right on the first page, basically shifting all my nicely-ordered icons elsewhere.

I learned long ago not to fight the power, wurm…

You don't need to download any widget. Battery level monitoring for all your connected devices is natively supported for the Lock Screen and the Home Screen ("Widget Stack"):

Yes, sorry. That's what I meant. I grabbed it from the Widget Stack. It still gave me the finger.

Since Apple introduced Apps a decade+ ago, it has NEVER offered an easy way to organize Apps and keep Apps organized. It's especially irksome when a user has spent more than a little time and then Apple decides, on it's own, to place a new (and possibly unwanted) App on the Home Page which then forces cascading problems as Apps a user carefully placed are now moved down the queu to a different page. iTunes was no prize but at least App wrangling could be done on a computer with a full sized keyboard and a screen that was MUCH easirt to see.

Well, after all the time I spent b!tching about it, I just spend ten minutes going through, deleting apps and moving things back to where I want them. All's well. Last night at bedtime I was seriously thinking of returning this thing. After a day's use, I guess I'll keep it. Thanks for letting me vent.

I'm still not ready to attempt installing that battery (or any other) widget yet.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/23/2022 05:18PM by wurm.

The last time I looked forward to an update was when we got integrated text messages across devices. Everything since then has just been different in some way.

I'm with testcase regarding app organization. It's a real pain. I'll add to it and say I'd like to organize my apps and their locations across devices (or at least have the option). I do it manually but it's a lot of effort.

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[colquhoun.info]

I had to fiddle with the focus setting because it kept insisting my car had CarPlay. No it doesn’t. And refused to listen to verbal commands. And then rebooted. Seems to have fixed it. Ugh…

Typical poor testing …

“Only fancy people are testing this”…

You didn't mention what your fix was for the missing apps.

I found that some apps that aren't supported by an iOS update, disappear.

That doesn't seem to be the way it worked back when, some time.

For many of my missing apps, there were updates I could download, and some had none, so buh-bye.

I was shocked to see the default fat font for the Lock Screen time.

All the online advice on how to choose a different font failed.

It failed to mention I had to rebuild my lock screen from scratch, but that allowed me to choose the least offensive font, the non-serif skinniest version.

I still want a thinner font for the time, but it's Apple.

What want, what I really really want in this respect, is a lock that I can apply before an update, that will tell the updater not to rearrange my icons or settings.

Many iOS and macOS updates turn on settings that I always have to turn off or change right after an update.

It's as though Apple is saying 'We respect your privacy but don't GAF about your preferences'.

---

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All you can do, is all you can do.

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Insisting on your rights without acknowledging your responsibilities isn’t freedom, it’s adolescence.

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Everybody counts or nobody counts.

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all who would be called good
must suffer with him.

You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.

There is no safety for honest men except
by believing all possible evil of evil men.

We don’t do focus groups. They just ensure that you don’t offend anyone, and produce bland inoffensive products. —Sir Jonathan Ive

An armed society is a polite society.
And hope is a lousy defense.

You make me pull, I'll put you down.

I *love* SIGs. It's Glocks I hate.

You pretty much said it all right there, RAMd®d.

You didn't mention what your fix was for the missing apps.

I honestly don't remember now. I think a few of them were hiding in the App Library. They seemed to re-appear after a couple of restarts, but honest-to God, I wouldn't bet my life on that.

I was shocked to see the default fat font for the Lock Screen time.
All the online advice on how to choose a different font failed.

That really bummed me out when I saw that. Mine was just a pic of my grandson, so I had to re-save that as a Wallpaper. Then after I selected it, I could "Customize". It was a matter of clicking on the time in that Customize window and that brought up a selection of fonts and thicknesses. Sadly, the thinnest wasn't as thin as the old one. So be it.

What want, what I really really want in this respect, is a lock that I can apply before an update, that will tell the updater not to rearrange my icons or settings.

That would make me happy...well, happier.

It's as though Apple is saying 'We respect your privacy but don't GAF about your preferences'.

And that's pretty much what it boils down to. Kind of frustrating for an 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' luddite like me.

I make it a practice to leave a couple of empty spaces on each page so that if an app suddenly appears it has a place to go without shoving a residing app to another location.

Hmmm...that's a very smart, practical, sensible way to handle it. Unfortunately, for an OCD like myself, that might make me just as crazy.

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wurm
Hmmm...that's a very smart, practical, sensible way to handle it. Unfortunately, for an OCD like myself, that might make me just as crazy.

LOL beat me to it.

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It is what it is.

And once it is set up the way you like it, do a screenshot of each page, just in case.

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Formerly known as Dennis R

Quote
Don C
I make it a practice to leave a couple of empty spaces on each page so that if an app suddenly appears it has a place to go without shoving a residing app to another location.

Me, too.

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Saint Cloud, Minnesota, where the weather is wonderful even when it isn't.

Hey wurm!
Just curious, what OS were you on before upgrading?
I’m inclined to suggest you don’t wait too long to update, so changes that hit you in the head come one at a time.

Here are a couple of links that may be unnecessary, but what tha…

How to add and edit widgets
[support.apple.com]
By the way, I keep the battery widget on the Today View, the floating page to the left of the Home Screen.
I haven’t found a need for a big widget on any of my two screens, and I prefer to keep the screen list short.

Organize the Home Screen and App Library
[support.apple.com]

Thanks, rich in distress. If I recall correctly, I believe I was still on 14.6.1. I had been thinking about going to 15 if only to get rid of that pesky red reminder, but there was nothing I'd read about the update that made me feel like it would benefit me. Nothing I used regularly was prompting me to update yet. Again, I had no intention of even getting an Apple Watch, so that wasn't a factor.

I'll check out those links among the many others I've found walking me through the processes.

Quote
Michael

Quote
chopper
"Never update"

Chopper

My retired-tech wife always believed that. Then one of the financial orgs required 2FA and that required that she update her MacBook Pro from whatever the OS was in 2014 when she got it to whatever it was in 2020. I never heard such language coming from such a sweet lady!

That is why 'never update' is a horrible way to go. One day you're gonna have to do it, and do it RIGHT NOW. Lots of cussing and hair pulling follows. Stuff gets wrecked, stuff gets lost forever - best way to ensure there will be a disaster in your future.