Even though a lot has changed in the iPhone over the years, especially with the recent updates, one thing has remained mostly the same – the dock at the bottom of the screen.
And while it’s helpful since it allows you to quickly access four of your most-used apps, like Phone and Messages, some people don’t like it.
Luckily, it is possible to remove the dock on your iPhone.
To remove the dock on the iPhone, you need to turn on Smart Invert for your Home screen and set a special wallpaper. This will hide or “remove” the dock from the iPhone.
Read on as we outline a step-by-step procedure to remove the dock on iPhone.
What Is the iPhone Dock & Should You Remove It?
The dock on your iPhone’s home screen is a grid with four places where you can add apps of your choice.
While you can choose the apps that show up in the dock, Apple doesn’t allow you to remove the dock itself by default. However, if you don’t like the dock, you can just hide it, and it won’t be a problem.
Many people also like to remove the dock since it gives their iPhone’s home screen a different and unique touch. And with a little trick, you can make the dock disappear. But remember that the icons of the app you added in the dock will still be visible at the bottom of the screen.
However, you can go a step further and remove the apps from the dock to completely make the dock disappear. All you need to do is make changes and set a special wallpaper!
How To Remove Dock on iPhone
The trick to removing the dock on the iPhone leverages a unique feature – the ability of the iOS dock to adapt to the chosen wallpaper. This way, the dock becomes translucent to fit with the wallpaper.
Certain wallpapers “remove” the dock of your iPhone if you set them in a specific way, like disabling motion. The dock becomes invisible and disappears completely with this background set on the home screen. And if you take out the apps from the dock and place them on another screen, the dock will be completely hidden.
This method only works for iOS 15 since Per-App Settings was introduced with this version of iOS.
So here’s what you need to do:
- Go to “Settings” and then to “Accessibility”.
- Scroll down to the “Per-App Settings”.
- On the next screen, tap on “Add App” and choose “Home Screen” from the list. This will add the Home Screen to the App Customization list.
- Tap on Home Screen to open up the list of customizations you can make.
- Scroll down to “Smart Invert” and tap on it. If you haven’t made any changes, this will be set to “Default”. Change it to “On”.
- For the next step, you need to choose a black wallpaper or any other one with black at the bottom of the screen. Apple provides a few of such wallpapers.
- So now go to “Wallpapers” in “Settings” and tap on “Choose a New Wallpaper”.
- On the next screen, you will see 3 options – Live, Stills, and Dynamic. Choose “Stills”.
- Scroll down, and you’ll see a bunch of wallpapers with black at the bottom. Choose the one you like and tap on “Set” at the bottom right.
- Then tap on “Set as Home Screen”.
- When you go back to the Home Screen, the dock will be gone, and only the icons of the apps in the dock will be left. If you don’t want those, drag them to the screen, and the dock will completely disappear.
Summary
You now know an easy way to remove the dock on the iPhone.
Many people suggest jail-breaking the iPhone to customize it however you want, but there are a lot of problems with that.
Changing the accessibility settings and the wallpaper is much easier and safer, and it hides your dock, too!
