Brass - Icon Themes & Widgets Reviews

by Mandejo

It won’t even let me watch videos to unlock apps, just keeps saying “an error occurred…” (after reading some other reviews, I’m assuming this is because they only allow you a couple of free icons, regardless of the claim to be “free with ads”)

Aside from that, they don’t even offer icons for all apps, only select apps. So for the functionality of my phone, I want, for example, Life360 on the first page of my Home Screen. I use it many times per day, but there is no option to change this icon, so I either have to bury it in a folder on another page (no) or few with the bright purple icon (defeats the whole purpose of Brass ) and that is the case for almost every app I have. Beyond that, since these are shortcuts, there are no badge notifications. So you won’t see the little alert on your messages or mail or anywhere else, informing you that something is going on there. Also takes away from the functionality of my phone.

Great in theory, needs work to make it more practical. I would happily pay $ for this same idea with the badge notifications feature and the option for an icon for every single app I would ever want to download.

by SevMurray

It kept either closing or glitching when i would try to watch a video to unlock something. When it crashed nothing was saved and i got as far as trying to instal it but the system wasn’t working. I just spent an hour adding the correct apps to the correct skins then took forever to unlock for free because im not interested in paying monthly. Why is nothing just pay for it and be done now? Once Brass crashes all my progress was gone. Really glad i didn’t sign up or pay for anything because in the end the set up wasn’t working and was not easy. I kept downloading the profile thing but it wasn’t coming up in my settings like it was meant to. Find a different app that lets you just pay outright instead of giving you anything from 15-60 second adds per skin just to unlock everything. They only give you maybe 5 free skins on some of these and after adds yes its free but if you want fast and easy that works well, this is not it. I don’t think I have ever gone out of my way to leave a bad review online, im not sure if this was just the last straw for me this week or if im right to warn people Brass may not work even if you put time or money into it but be warned.

by Tredark

As the title stated I usually don’t care enough to write a review but Brass is disgusting. The amount of ads forcefully shoved into Brass is absolutely disgusting. Before I could even get a chance to try out Brass , I’m bombarded with subscriptions and different monthly payments to unlock full access to an app I’ve never even tried before. After I clicked the tiny decline button , I was forced to watch a short ads for another free to play game. I’m used to that do that isn’t a problem. Next, i found roughly 30 or so interesting simple themes, quickly picked one and selected a few icons i liked. The problem with Brass is that it showed I’ve unlocked two icons out of 100ish APPS. AND IF I WANTED TO UNLOCK THEM, I WOULD HAVE TO WATCH THE ADS OR PAY THE SUBSCRIPTION. So before i got a chance to see the worth of anything Brass had to offer, I was bombarded and pressed to make a purchase or give up 30 seconds of my time to unlock one icons for a theme. Do not download until they change this.

by A Guy Who Loves AMONG US

This showed up in an ad for me, at first I thought “Wow, this is going to improve my screen.” But . . . I was wrong. You see, Brass can screw up your apps when you use the new ones instead of the real ones, this can happen by not having the real apps on your phone and instead having the ones you wanted. This happed because some of my apps would not process the icons. So I had to restart, and apparently. All my apps where gone. Thank God I was able to get them back or else I would not be able to write this review. Brass also intended to “Track” you, which can raise a red flag to people of privacy and safety. I was tricked into getting Brass, and now I know that stuff like this intends to look like it wants to help but really it wants to screw up your screen. If you read all of this, now you are probably blaming me for getting this. Well, yea I looked at the reviews and stuff but then again bots are a thing now, so ya. I kinda blame myself for getting this, but most of all. This intends to “Track”, and screw up your phones apps. Well to me this seems true.

by Functionoverstyle83

The way Brass achieves an impressive aesthetic is crafty for sure. Instead of actually changing Brass icons (something that I assume is impossible in the Apple ecosystem), Brass creates shortcuts and bookmarks that link to the actual apps. The idea is that you assign the styluses icons to the bookmarks and shortcuts, then remove the actual apps from your Home Screen. This gives you the visuals you are after, but using your phone this way can be maddening. If you are used to clicking the back button to return to your previous app, you can’t anymore - it will just take you back to the bookmark/shortcut and then bounce back to Brass you are already using. Want to grab a quick photo? Be prepared to wait an extra few seconds for the camera shortcut to bounce to Brass , then for Siri to remind you that this is a shortcut. Want to reveal all of your open apps? You screen will be polluted with empty black windows… every app you open has a corresponding bookmark/shortcut open with it. I give the creators credit for figuring out how to achieve this kind of visuals in a locked down iOS environment, but unless you really value style over functionality, this is just too wonky to endorse. And if you do decide to go ahead with it, be prepared to spend hours setting up your shortcuts and bookmarks - nothing is automatic here.

by Nikovinny

1) Poor customer service (they ignore you if you ask for a refund and don’t even answer back). 2) Brass does not actually change the icon for apps. It creates a shortcut, which is what you see in the pictures. What this means is that for each app, there is a shortcut on your Home Screen as well. If you want it to look nice, you will have to take all your apps (not the shortcuts) and put them in a separate folder and hide them somewhere. 3) On top of that, because they are shortcuts, they do not show if you have a notification or not, which is very annoying. 4) not all the apps on your phone have a downloadable “shortcut” to replace Brass . I’m not just talking about random downloaded apps, they also do not have ones for apps that are already downloaded to your iPhone (such as FaceTime) so it looks stupid having half normal looking apps and the other half with the changed icons. Do not waste your money on this, cause like I said, they will ignore you if you ask for a refund.

by K Color

I never write reviews because I’m not gonna spend my time taking my anger out on app developers but I love the icons they look really good I thought for most of them I would have to make a custom icon but no, pretty much all my apps were customizable. So then why 1 star? Look no one is going to pay a weekly fee just for your apps to look good. So I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say everyone started out on the free route, they advertise it as free so why pay right? Well at the very end you either pay the stupid amount or you watch a bunch of adds to unlock them all, BUT IT ALWAYS CRASHES AFTER ONE ADD. I have a fairly new phone (the XR) and I have never had crashing problems before. I’m not saying there doing this on purpose but, I mean making people watch 2 or 3 adds and then crash Brass and then make them watch another 2 or 3 adds until they get mad and delete Brass , I mean it sounds really sketchy. Overall this is just a cash grab app I’m pretty sure most these icons weren’t made by them anyway I’m very disappointed

by Gianna Mayer

I hate writing reviews, but I felt like I had to for this one. Okay so here goes, Brass is amazing they have so many different options to choose from and it’s easy to get the icons on your phone. And it’s free and you only have to watch some short ads to get the icons. I’m sure you’re wondering then why only two stars. Well because it only lets you do that five time until you have to pay for Brass . NOT COOL. If you’re advertising that it’s for free and all you have to do is watch some ads to get the icons then that’s what it should be. Not here’s a teaser of some cute icons and then boom now you have to pay. The icons where you have to manually add to your phone using shortcuts still work, it’s the ones that are easy install. So if you’re going to do that then make it so I can just use the shortcuts on my phone. I understand people need to make money, but to make it $10 a month is a little crazy. If it was $10 one time purchase I would have just paid it and moved on with my life. If they would fix those little issues I would have given them 5 stars hands down.

by AshleyShell

Brass mostly worked the way it was supposed to. I did run into the following issues:

-Brass frequently crashed or gave me an error.
-When I installed the theme, for some reason several of the icons I had selected did not install and I had to download them manually.

Apart from the actual issues, Brass was kind of a pain to set up. I quickly realized that replacing the icons for ALL of my apps would be impossible, so I decided to do only the ones on my Home Screen. This was still a very time consuming task involving dragging each individual icon to where I wanted it and creating replacements for some icons that didn’t save correctly.

I will say the knowledge alone was worth the money I paid for Brass . It’s not actually Brass icons that are changing; instead you’re creating new bookmarks on your Home Screen that lead to the apps. Since I know how to create icons using Canva, I could create and install my own themes if I wanted to without having to maintain an active subscription. Of course being able to install a bunch of apps in bulk all at once saves a lot of time…but that was the thing that didn’t work right for me.

I actually ended up removing the theme for the reason that since the icons are only bookmarks, they don’t show badge notifications, and I need my phone and messaging apps to show badge notifications in order to be practical.

by Willow1600

I'd say Brass is overall pretty good. It's definitely better than the other apps because it let's you do that what I know of all of then for free. However, if you don't want to pay it makes you watch an app for EVERY SINGLE ICON. And on top of that it only let's you do five at a time, not that you can't do them all, but it takes longer that way, and if you accidentally close Brass you have to be able to find it again to do the rest. AND if you accidentally swipe down off the ad icon page you lose all the progress you did with watching ads for the apps. But another good thing is if you download the profile thing it automatically puts all five icons on your home screen and already working. Although the last five apps didn't let me for some reason, so I did it manually. But in the end it looks amazing and I'd say it's definitely worth it.

by Babashoombs

Ok so Brass is nice I really like how you can choose which apps you want to be on your Home Screen. Brass is also nice because it has way more apps that people need that aren’t on any of the other places. The only really annoying thing is you have to watch an add for each app you want to unlock if you don’t want to subscribe or pay money. I personally think that 1 add should unlock at least up to 3 apps instead of having to watch one for each and every app. The other thing that is annoying is that no where in Brass does it say if you delete the profiles from settings you will then proceed to delete all of your icons you just set up. I literally just did that and I was honestly really annoyed by that. So a friendly recommendation I have is to have 1 add unlock up to 3 apps and to specify in big bold letters at the beginning of the process that deleting the profiles will delete the icons. Other than that I really like Brass with a lot of really cool themes and I will definitely continue to use Brass in the future.

by I_love_dateline_1234

Ok. First of all, Brass is super cool, and there are so many different themes to choose from. One of my problems is that when you pick a theme, like for example yesterday I tried to pick a fall theme with pumpkins as the wallpaper. When I clicked on it and tapped setup theme, it told me to select which apps I had that I wanted to change, and not all of the apps that I have were there. I don’t see why there are only 20 apps for you to choose from, when everyone has more apps than that. It doesn’t even have a choice for Brass! this app! And then, when I clicked next, it made me watch a 30 second ad for every single app that I wanted to change. And, it only changes what the apps look like but it is a completely different app. You still have to keep the regular looking app. It only changes the icons but it doesn’t change my wallpaper or anything. No widgets, no wallpapers, I have to keep my regular apps, and I have to watch ads for every single app.

by JesusChrist4eva

I thought Brass would be awesome…looked awesome and I was excited to get it. Then. After I got Brass I saw other reviews that said “ Don’t get Brass it’s horrible” and that scared me then when I started using it, it was just trash…great app and super neat but watching ads and having to pay…What is up with that?!!? Furthermore, I have a question I read more reviews and they said - “ Have to pay in the end” when is the end exactly?? I love Brass and it works great but it’s just not simple to use. I feel like I would like it a lot better if they would just make it less complex…I’m not horrible at technology but I’m a tech person I’m just a person who wants to make their phone look nice with an app that helps me do that not an app that helps me get agitated. Anyway I’m I’m deciding to keep Brass and am just going to figure it out. *Shouldn’t have to be that hard!!!😡🙄*-NOW THE ADS AREN’T WORKING AND IT’S NOT LETTING ME CONTINUE TO MAKE THE ICONS CUSTOM!!!!😡😤😡👿😠😡👿

by Applauce

I’ve tried a few others and found that they didn’t quite give the same level of control over the icons and which app they would redirect you to as this one. I like how many icons some theme packs come with so you can really get creative with the apps you have and you don’t have to just stick with the few system apps fitting the theme. My biggest issue is that no matter what I do, some apps just don’t work when I click on them. So I’m using the red neon theme and when I use specific apps (i.e. Chase, ECOVACSHOME, Autotask Live) they open to the black screen but don’t redirect to Brass . I tried putting them back on multiple times but it still doesn’t work. I wish there was a way to just download the icons as images so I could set them up in the shortcuts app manually. I know that some apps require you to do that already (I.e. the phone app, FaceTime, voice memos) so it’s possible. Just make it an option for all of the icons.

by Victoriaswhitmore

so the way Brass works is not by setting up shortcuts that open apps, but by creating a bookmark to a url that opens an app. then, the bookmark is added to the home screen with the icon of your choosing. it’s nice that they’re taking the work out of it for the user, but here’s the thing: it opens the bookmark AND Brass when you click an icon. it may seem insignificant, but it drives me nuts. basically it’s like it opens two of the same app.

i would rate higher if you were able to manually download ALL the icons as opposed to letting Brass set up the weird bookmark profile for you. yeah it’ll take longer to manually create shortcuts, but when you do it manually there’s no extra bookmark “app” that pops up with Brass you clicked.

if there’s a way to download all the icons from a theme as photos, please let me know! otherwise this would be a great feature to add for picky people like me

by Lynniah😀

Ok so Brass itself is good, there are a lot of different themes that you can choose through without having to pay. If you don’t mind watch a ton of ads I recommend Brass but there is also another way that I got the icons without watching the ads. All you have to do is screenshot the icons you want then use the shortcuts app and do everything like that. It sounds like a lot of work, but it’s not if you have a lot of apps on you Home Screen then it will take more than an hour because of the ads but if you do it this way it will probably take about 30 minutes. This is also a better way to do stuff because if you use Brass it sometime doesn’t take you to the apps that are assigned or it just doesn’t take you to Brass period. But I mainly recommend this if you need a matching app icons.

by Eind's Cool World

So this is for everyone who thinks that it only goes in your camera roll! Or it won’t work. Most of them are supposed to be downloaded through the settings. The rest are in the camera roll which you have to add in Shortcuts and nothing else. Those are because they weren’t added to the ones that need downloading. So stop hating on Brass! It’s great and it works! Just make sure that all of them have to be downloaded and you don’t have to watch the ads to unlock them to use them. Oh yeah, about the ads. If it shows you the screen where you can pay there is a fine print button where you can go on without paying with ads. You can still you Brass but tap on the ones you want to use and press continue, you will have to watch ads to unlock every single one you picked. It was annoying for me because I have a 9 year old daughter who installed this with my permission and had to watch ads for every single one. Still great and works, just too many ads of you don’t pay.

by Cookiebaby13111

I have searched so many apps and download it so many apps to create a fun theme for my phone and make it look more aesthetic. None of the apps I’ve downloaded have worked. Brass is an amazing app if you’re looking for aesthetic wallpapers and themesI love Brass because you don’t have to pay for anything. You can create your own same or you could just download a theme. If you don’t wanna pay for the premium then all you have to do if it says download all and you have to get the premium it’ll bring you to another thing if he pranks ex. Then all you have to do is follow them on Pinterest or watch videos to download each and every theme for your apps. I definitely recommend. I love Brass but if I were you I would download it right away.✨✨✨

by Allie_sdo

Unlike other apps, this app doesn’t require a paying fee. I have looked on all these apps and the good themes for your wallpaper, they all cost money, but this app doesn’t. All you have to do is watch ads, and for one app you just have to follow them and for that one you don’t need to watch a ad.

For me, I don’t like watching ads so I screen shot the pictures and press continue, continue again and add wallpaper. Then I use an app called shortcuts, you can make your wallpaper an original design. And then I use the screenshots and make my wallpaper. And I do use this app for the widgets they get saved in “Your Widgets”

So, I recommend Brass because it is free, and there is good themes. So if you don’t like Brass it’s your loss. But if you don’t like the ads like me, then I would screenshot the pictures and download shortcuts.

by ElderMillenial87

So first of all, it costs $25/year to use Brass. Then, a good outcome requires more work than I initially expected. You have to change your wallpaper and most icons yourself, this app just gives you the raw material and instructions. Also, I’m not sure if I’m doing something wrong, but my screen doesn’t show the red notification badges on my new icons. This may actually be a plus for me, we’ll see.
All in all I’m very happy, but I can see how it wouldn’t be for everyone. If you decide to do this, here’s my advice: plan the layout of your screen before you try to install, make a list of all your apps, then systematically switch over. Also lots of apps are not in their library of icons, but you can get around that by screenshoting an icon that you like, cropping the image to just the icon, then following their instructions to utilize shortcuts.

by Hoolia18

This is an app that give you pre-made app icons for those who want to use the Shortcuts to customize app icons. I personally don’t like that method, but Brass is useful for those that do! It’s obviously in the early stages as there aren’t a whole lot of options yet, but it’ll get there