You can assign each contact an image, whether it's a photo of their face or a picture associated with them. Instead, the home screen icons are bookmarks, which are shortcuts that'll open up their Contacts page or start a call or message in your app of choice, like Message or FaceTime. Now, they won't technically be 'apps' themselves, but they will show up in your App Library, which makes them feel like apps in some ways. For those of you looking for something better, try turning all your favorite and most-used contacts into apps on your home screen. There's a workaround that brings it back via the Shortcuts app, but the original Favorites widget was better all around. When iOS 14 was released, the 'Favorites' widget, which provided quick access to your most-used contacts, was nowhere to be seen.
