Creating your own iPhone icons is a new feature in iOS 14 that I really like.

Yes, one of the more popular changes in iOS 14 is the ability to customize the home screen. However, at first it didn't appeal to me.

Last week, one of my favorite podcasts, Do By Friday, released its own custom icon set for Patreon subscribers. This set, which called back to an old podcast episode, was the first set of unique icons that made me want to subscribe.

So, with the help of my colleague Kate Kozuch's invaluable guide on how to create custom iPhone widgets and app icons in iOS 14, I actually set them up. If you haven't experienced it yet, it's not easy at all (thanks to her for explaining it to me). Import the photos for the app icon into the Files app (using iCloud Drive), then use the Shortcuts app to create a new icon that will be a shortcut to the actual app...just like creating an app alias for the desktop in Windows 10 or macOS It's just like that.

Some time later (not so shortly), while re-watching "Hannibal" (one of Netflix's best shows), I finished the process, turning 16 icons into app buttons and replacing the entire home screen. The unique app icons were strange, in a good way; it was as if I had alien versions of these apps. For example, the picture of the keychain became the settings app.

But then everything went wrong. In actually testing one of these custom app icons, I noticed how iOS 14 adds a step in the middle and sends it momentarily to the shortcut app. This momentary pause shows how the shortcut app opens the app linked to the custom icon.

And I don't have an older iPhone. I have an iPhone 11 Pro Max, which is quite speedy. In fact, iOS 14 seems to load my ridiculously large iCloud Photo Library faster than iOS 13. However, this odd pause seems to be causing the iPhone to have trouble directing me to the app linked to the shortcut.

Fortunately, a happy ending awaits. as reported by Chance Miller of 9to5Mac, this pause and loading moment is gone in iOS 14.3 beta 2. i don't know when iOS 14.3 will be released, and I'm not a company that pays me to test software, so I can't play with it yet.

Apple's move to tie these custom app icon launches closely to Shortcuts is nothing if not a huge mistake. They are apparently looking at how we use their features and what doesn't look right. iPhone A14 Bionic is a super fast processor, faster than any phone and faster than some laptops. It's just a matter of making sure iOS 14 doesn't make it look slow.