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Comment by jaywalk | Hacker News Reader

You can put them on a hidden home screen. It's a pain, but it's the only way to keep the app but not have it on your home screen.

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I had a response typed out, but I think I’m missing something. What is a hidden Home Screen on an iPhone? I have a one page Home Screen, after that it’s the App Library.

If you add a second page of apps, go into jiggle mode, tap the page indicator dots at the bottom to enter the overview mode, then uncheck a Home Screen. It will still exist, but it will be hidden.

Okay I’m really glad I asked because I did not know about that feature at all, and it does the job even if in an awkward way (adding a second PWA creates a third page when the second one is hidden). The PWA I was using to test iOS/PWA interactions now shows up in the App Library and Spotlight among the app results.

It’s not great, but as compromises go this one is basically reasonable, though Apple should still just let me dump them straight to the App Library. Thanks!

Focus Modes can also hide/show different Home Screens depending on Focus Mode, which is also one of the handy reasons to use Focus Modes.

I think that’s the only reason this exists, as a side effect of Focus modes. I can’t see Apple adding it purposefully otherwise.

My understanding is that being able to hide Home pages predates Focus modes as it was the poor (and hard to discover) solution to what the Apps Library became (for apps that you needed installed but didn't care to see all the time).

But yes, Focus Modes definitely elevates it to another level when you've got Mode-specific pages.

Really? I don’t remember that but I also don’t think I ever would’ve went looking.

You can have multiple home screens (you've got 2 or 3 on a fresh installation). If you drag an icon to the right you'll see that you'll get an extra screen.

Hi, thanks! I know this and thought this is what was being referred to too, but coder543 had the real answer up above and it’s pretty good. You should check it out.

Ah, I didn't know about that. Interesting.

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