Show HN: Mosaic – arrange iOS icons by color using an evolutionary algorithm

Posted by artkh on Sunday May 10, 2026 @02:29PM
from the show-hn dept.

It started out as a way for me to freshen up my C++ skills during COVID. But life got in the way and it was put on ice. Luckily, coding LLMs came to the rescue and allowed me to bring it to a point where I feel comfortable sharing it.

( 2 comments | on HN )

Re:Show HN: Mosaic – arrange iOS icons by color using an evo... by samesense on Monday May 11, 2026 @11:44AM (#48096545)

I get that grouping similarly colored icons might look better, but does it make it harder to find the app you want? Do you mainly pick apps by position? For quickly locating an app, wouldn’t it be better to place similar colors far apart, so you remember, for example, that the music app is the red icon in the lower right?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Show HN: Mosaic – arrange iOS icons by color using an evo... by artkh on Tuesday May 12, 2026 @03:15AM (#48105225)

It's subjective but IMO grouping does help. It's not that the icons change positions regularly. There is no need for that. If you install or remove an app you may need to rerun the algorithm. But even then, the icons rarely change pages since they are still bound to the colors around them.

Usually, when I need to find the app, I already know its color. So I navigate to the page of that color and find the icon there.

But now that you mention it, it would be fun to reverse the metrics so each icon pushes similar icons away and see what we end up with.

[ Parent | on HN ]