Tech Life

My Homescreen (July 2012) →

General Rules

  • Always keep one row empty to keep the screen uncluttered and give me a natural spot to swipe there when switching homescreens.

  • No bright wallpapers for the homescreen and especially not the lock screen. iOS keeps the lock screen at full brightness, regardless of your brightness settings. This takes a toll on the battery when push notifications come in throughout the day.

Apps

  • Calendar app is at the top-left and requires farthest reach for my right thumb. Its my least-used app on the homescreen, but I need it there to quickly see today's date.

  • Maps towards the top-right because I need them easily accessible while I'm driving. (Looking forward to the upcoming turn-by-turn feature in iOS6!)

  • Foursquare, Facebook, PostMate and Tweetbot are my most-used, most-accessible apps, placed strategically where my right thumb feels most comfortable tapping.

  • PostMate is an app I designed. I use it to quickly draft & post to my Twitter accounts, Facebook Profile/Pages, and Foursquare all in one shot.

  • ProCamera is on the dock because I take a lot of photos (of my food, lol). Its image stabilization mode is my favorite over all of the other camera apps out there.

What's Missing?

  • Phone — moved off-screen because I use Siri to initiate 95% of my outgoing calls and the lock screen for calling back missed calls.

  • Weather — moved off-screen, thanks to Siri and the Weather widget in Notification Center.

  • Mail, Facebook Messenger — I hardly initiate conversations on the iPhone so I just use Notification Center and the lock screen to stay up-to-date of new messages.

  • Google Voice — I have GV text messages forwarded to the Messages app; this saves me a LOT of battery compared to using the official GV app for text conversations.

  • Reminders - I use Siri to create tasks and location-based notifications to stay on top of them.

  • Music - moved off-screen because with Siri on iOS 6, I can launch this app, specific songs, and specific playlists by voice command. I mainly use this app while I'm driving anyway.

What does your homescreen look like?

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