Without a doubt, the most important thing you can do on your device is launch an app. But did you know there are a number of methods for doing this? Here, we’ve outlined all the ways you can launch an app on your iPhone or iPad without setting up any special third-party apps like Launcher.

From the Home screen

At your iPhone’s Home screen, you can launch an app by tapping it. You might have apps hidden in folders or apps on multiple pages. Plus, if you’re using one of the new widgets in iOS 14, you can launch the corresponding app by tapping the widget itself.

If you swipe all the way to the right, you’ll find the App Library. There, you can launch apps from one of the auto-populated folders – suggested apps are housed in the top-left, while recently added apps are in the top-right. Below, the rest of your iOS apps are neatly categorized for you into folders like social, utilities, creativity, and more.

Tapping the search field at the top of the App Library interface lets you search for installed apps by name, or scrub through an A-to-Z list. At the minute, App Library is only available in iOS 14 – it hasn’t yet made the leap to iPadOS.

Open apps with a swipe

Swiping down on your Home Screen reveals the Spotlight search interface. (You can swipe from anywhere on-screen except the very top.) On iPhone in iOS 14, Spotlight is headed-up with Siri Suggestions – a row of apps that your device (or rather, its virtual assistant, Siri) thinks you’ll need at that given time. For instance, if you use the Maps app each morning, it’ll appear in Siri Suggestions at the right time.

To increase the number of Siri Suggested apps, tap the arrow to the right of this section and your row of four apps will increase to eight.

In Spotlight on both iPhone and iPad, you can search for apps, too. Simply type out the app’s name and a list of suggestions – including contacts, files, and reminders, as well as the apps themselves – will appear.

And if you have a physical keyboard attached to your iPad – like Apple’s Magic Keyboard or Smart Keyboard Folio – you can quickly access Spotlight using the cmd + space shortcut.

With your voice

Siri can suggest apps over in Spotlight, but it can also open apps, too. To do so, activate Siri using your preferred method – either by calling out “Hey Siri,” or holding the Side or Home button (depending on your iPhone model) – and ask the virtual assistant to launch your desired app. It’s worth noting that for security reasons, your iPhone or iPad will need to be unlocked before apps can be launched via Siri (using either Face ID, Touch ID, or a conventional passcode).

So there you have it. There have never been so many different ways to do what every iPhone and iPad owner loves doing best: launching our favorite apps!