App Library is a new feature part of iOS 14

Nov 26, 2020 17:41 GMT  ·  By

One of the big new features in iOS 14, the latest operating system update for the iPhone, is called App Library.

Added as a new page on the home screen, App Library is a feature that organizes all your apps into different folders and suggests the ones that may come in handy at certain times.

So theoretically, if you have multiple app pages on the home screen, you just need to swipe right again and again and again until you reach the App Library and thus see how everything is organized in folders.

As it typically does every time a new feature is announced, Apple introduced App Library in iOS 14 with much fanfare, explaining how useful it can especially when having plenty of apps installed on the iPhone.

“Home Screen pages can display widgets that are customized for work, travel, sports, entertainment, and other areas of interest. At the end of the Home Screen pages is the App Library, a new space that automatically organizes all of a user’s apps into one simple, easy-to-navigate view, and intelligently surfaces apps that may be helpful in the moment. Users can choose how many Home Screen pages to display and easily hide pages for quicker access to the App Library,” Apple said.

Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering, also praised the new feature.

“With beautifully redesigned widgets on the Home Screen, the App Library that automatically organizes all of your apps, and App Clips that are fast and easy to discover, iPhone becomes even more powerful and easier to use.”

But is it really that useful? Not for everybody, that’s for sure.

Right now, I have 84 apps installed on my iPhone, and because I like things to be organized, they’re grouped in folders that make everything really easy to find.

For example, all my shopping apps are grouped in one folder called simply “Shopping,” while games are obviously in the directory baptized “Games.” While I often rely on the iOS search to quickly find a specific app, using more straightforward names for these folders helps me find a specific one without the need for actually typing its name in the search.

This is why in my case the App Library is a rather redundant feature. I can admit it’s probably something truly useful for those who have pages and pages of apps on their iPhones, but then again, adding the App Library on the last page isn’t necessarily a convenient update.

So who’s it for?

As I said, I can’t imagine how the App Library can come in handy on a device with just a few apps. But then, it could be quite a pain in the neck to use it on an iPhone with hundreds of apps, simply because you’d have to swipe again and again until you reach it on the last pace on the home screen.

I’m pretty sure there are users out there who love the App Library and find this feature super-useful, and at the end of the day, this is exactly why Apple should add a toggle to let us disable it if we really don’t need it.

To be honest, I never used the App Library since updating my iPhone to iOS 14, and I’m sure I never will. What this means is that it’s become something that just stays there for no reason, and right now, there’s no way for me to actually disable it.

And this is why Apple should allow iPhone users to disable the App Library.