Aesthetic: App icons & Widgets

What it does

Aesthetic is a comprehensive toolkit for personalizing the iOS home screen. The app offers a wide array of pre-designed themes, icon packs, wallpapers, and widgets. Beyond curated content, it features powerful AI tools, including a text-to-image generator for creating unique wallpapers (06:17) and an AI avatar creator that transforms user photos into various artistic styles (07:09).

Where it shines

The app excels in the depth of its customization options. A user can apply a full theme or, as shown at 01:48, deconstruct it and save individual elements like the widget, wallpaper, or icons separately. This granular control is a significant strength. The AI generation tools are also well-integrated. The text-to-image feature is straightforward, allowing users to enter a prompt, pick a style, and quickly generate multiple options (06:52), adding a layer of endless, user-driven content.

UX highlights

Engaging Onboarding Quiz: The onboarding uses visual grids for its personalization quiz (00:22), making it quick and intuitive for users to select their preferred styles.
Clear Content Hub: The main 'Discover' screen (01:19) is well-organized, with carousels for different content types like 'Aesthetic Themes' and 'Aesthetic Wallpapers', making navigation easy.
Component-Based Customization: When applying a theme, users can save each part separately (01:48). This is a user-friendly approach that supports both full makeovers and minor tweaks.
In-Depth Widget Editing: The widget editor (08:17) offers robust options, including changing the widget type, background color or photo, and even the font (08:44).
Seamless AI Integration: AI features are presented as a primary navigation tab called 'Magic AI,' signaling their importance and making them easily accessible.

Monetization & growth

The app presents a soft paywall during the onboarding flow (00:35) after personalizing the experience but before granting access to the main content. It offers a yearly plan with a significant discount ('SAVE 96%') and a weekly plan fronted by a 7-day free trial. An interesting pattern is the 'Enable Free Trial' toggle (00:38), which requires users to opt-in to the trial actively. This subscription unlocks the full range of content and features.

Who it’s for

Aesthetic is for iPhone users who want to move beyond default iOS customization. Its target audience ranges from casual users looking for a new wallpaper to power users who want to curate every icon, widget, and background to match a specific style. The inclusion of AI tools also attracts users interested in creative expression and generating unique digital art for their device.

Notes & opportunities

The primary point of friction is inherent to iOS customization: installing custom icons requires downloading and installing a configuration profile (02:35), which takes the user out of the app and into the device Settings. While the app provides a guide, this is a clunky experience it cannot avoid. Additionally, some AI features like 'Create theme' are marked as 'It's coming soon!' (08:08), which can be disappointing for users who tap on them expecting functionality.