I feel like they tried with the update that lets you place an icon below or to the right of an empty space. But it doesn't work well because it was never designed to work that way.

Even with Android (which has always let you do this), it does dumb shit, like wanting to create a folder when you move an icon where another one is.

It's not hard to place icons where you want them, but it can be tricky. The best thing to do is take all the icons off your Home Screen. I'm not sure if there's an easy way to do that. I'd go to the home screen manager (long press home screen, edit in top left, tap the (...) (home screen indicator), then try to delete home screens. Barring that... go into edit mode (aka wiggle mode), long press one, start to move it, and hold it with the finger... then with another finger, tap other icons to "stack" them. You should be able to delete them all (per home screen) relatively quickly. Then... add icons... one at a time, from the library. First build out your first page, then the next one, and so on.

If you're (they're) gonna threaten to go back to Android, make it over the keyboard. Here's why. Apple actually changes what you type. They only do it in a few instances. Like if you type "kill yourself" on an iPhone, it'll change "yourself". There are things it doesn't like you to say. Or it'll change it to something else. It likes to change "Android" to "advertise," for example. It also likes to change "and" to "Abe" (no, I don't know anyone named that). Now, these are all minor annoyances you can get around. The sponsored switches vary from person to person and not everyone gets them... but the ones like "Android" and "kill yourself" I think are more universal. There are a lot of "sensitive" things it just doesn't let you say. So you have to wonder, if the political system gets worse, if it's gonna stop you from saying other "sensitive" things. I don't really see Google/Gboard ever doing that. And Apple always has, I mean even before the current administration, they've tried to put their hands in what we type because you really shouldn't say certain things online. And it's not their job. I mean like what if I want to write a story. The keyboard doesn't check if you're on Facebook or if you're in Pages. It just censors. And it shouldn't. And I don't think Android does. Should I stipulate "Yet"?