iOS 18 is rumored to bring some changes to the Control Center, including the capability to reorganize some items via a drag-and-drop system.
“The new Control Center would feature a drag-and-drop system that allows at least some of the controls to be reorganized on the screen, our sources said,” according to MacRumors. This should be a pretty straightforward change.
You would touch and hold any item in the Control Center until the icons began jiggling before moving it to a new position and releasing the finger.
This is precisely how rearranging the Home Screen icons works, so there’s no reason to come up with a new system for customizing the Control Center layout (on a related note, iOS 18 is rumored to enable users to arrange icons more freely, as well as create blank spaces, rows and columns between app icons).
iOS 18 will bring some changes to the Control Center
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman was the first to learn that iOS 18’s Control Center would bring some “updates” in the form of a customizable layout and refreshed controls.
According to Gurman’s sources, the Control Center on iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 might pick up a new music widget and improve the smart home control.
MacRumors has heard from its source that Apple internally tested a redesigned Control Center. However, neither MacRumors nor Gurman could confirm whether these changes have been finalized, and if so, whether an updated Control Center would launch alongside iOS 18.0 in the fall or arrive later in 2024 or 2025.
The Control Center brings controls for frequently-used system features like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Volume, Brightness, etc., in an overlay that you can pull down from the upper-right corner of the screen to quickly change these settings.
The new Control Center and more at WWDC24
The Control Center arrived on the iPhone with the iOS 7 introduction in 2013. The firsst redesign of the Control Center interface came with iOS 11 in 2017.
Apple will preview the biggest new features coming to iOS 18 and other software platforms at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference from June 10-15.