My iPhone Home Screen: October 2012 Edition

A new phone. A new home screen. A new social network. There have been extensive changes to my home screen with the release of the iPhone 5 and App.net's rise as my favorite (soon to be "only"?) social network. Given the iPhone 5's added screen real estate, I have an extra row of apps to cover so this might take a while to write as well as read so let's not delay things any further.

Row One

1Password has long been a standard on all of my devices. Lately, with all of the hackings and whatnot, it has become one of the most essential. Rotating highly unique passwords is possible because of 1Password's ability to generate them as needed and cut/paste them where needed.

If you don't have 1Password, buy it. If you own it but you're not using it, you're just asking for it. I'll just leave this here... you know who you are.

Calvetica remained on the Home screen for a while but I'm impatient for an expanded view for iPhone 5. Calendaring apps present situations that benefit greatly from increased screen real estate. Since Week Cal was one of the first to jump on the expanded screen, and I had it hidden on the back page, I just swapped the two and I'm pretty happy with it. I forgot how good this app was. Calvetica is on the back page for now and I'll just swap them randomly, I guess...

Awful is still in heavy use to read the SomethingAwful forums. (I hate Reddit so much -- it's the cesspool of a comment section beneath every forum post in the world but in handy forum form.)

Utilities folder
In my Utilities folder, I keep a rotating cast of characters that need more-than-occasional access and aren't accessible through Launch Center Pro (see below). Calendar, Clock, Calculator, Bing, Glassboard, GV Mobile+, Adian, Rivr all live in here. I keep moving ADN clients in and out of this folder but I'll get to App.Net (ADN) in a second.

Row Two

Instacast is back in the mix. I love the other clients I've tried but Instacast is the best fit for how I listen to podcasts. Instacast developers moved quickly to fix the complaints that heavy users like me had after a major release that changed many really good features. After those features made their way back to the app, I returned as well. It's a really good app nowadays.

Fitbit still gets my food and water consumption entered into it every day. It's become habit and the changes in the recent version of the app made it marginally better. At least it didn't make it worse, which is usually my fear after big changes.

Soulver, as Ben Brooks mentioned recently, is a really amazing product. I use it all the time for monthly expenses, working out financial planning for hiring and project management and helping my 12 year old with his algebra homework.

Settings is back on the Home screen, mainly because I use the new iOS 6 "Do Not Disturb" mode fairly often and I wanted it more accessible. If it could be toggled in Launch Center Pro or via the Notifications pull down, it'd be ideal but I'm not holding out hope.

Row Three

Felix is one of the ADN clients on my iPhone. I'm using quite a few right now, testing them out and putting them all through their paces. Felix is fantastic. The "feel" is just right, the look is aesthetically pleasing and usable and, as a 1.0, it was rock solid and stable. I was happily using Felix for about a week but then Netbot hit (yesterday) which turned things upsidedown for me. I continue to get push notifications through Felix and use it about half the time. If a few key changes get made (bookmark sync & gap expansion are the two I have in mind), it may be the client that stays on the front page.

Dark Sky remains the most magical app on my phone. Last Friday, I was working from home and Dark Sky sent me a push notification that rain was going to start in my area soon. I have a fairly long driveway (we moved to a really cool rented farmhouse last year) so I got up and went out to fetch the mail before I ran the risk of getting soaked. On the walk back to the house, sure enough, rain started to fall. Magic.

Harvest for my hours tracking. A necessary evil, I'm afraid.

Nebulous Notes has taken a huge leap in the last version. I use it across iPhone and iPad and it is the best Dropbox-integrated text editor out there. At least for me. It suits all of my needs pretty perfectly including, after some monkeying around, outlining meeting notes. It is an essential app if there ever was one.

Row Four

Netbot is a newcomer but it is a fantastic addition. Helping move ADN from a small, fringe upstart to something a bit more visible, Tapbots released a version of their streaming social network client for ADN and, while it is very similar in form and function to its flagship app, Tweetbot, what it means to people who have been on ADN for a while is significant. I have been buying, downloading and using all of the ADN clients I can get my hands on, not only to support the work of the developers but to see what new things can be done with the fledgling APIs and concepts.

Netbot uses ADN to replicate Twitter and that's not such a bad thing. Twitter's treatment of its longstanding users and developer community has been appalling. I can see, as the network expands, the apps changing to embrace some of its newer functions (annotations, privacy APIs) and grow with the features as they're added. It's a great start. As I've been singing the praises of Tweetbot for some time, I'm happy to see Tapbots on ADN too.

Google+ is still on the front page. I check it once a day but it's a weird mix of Android fans, science news and beer links.

Safari gets a lot more use now that Cloudtabs exist.

Row Five

Drafts has had some fantastic updates since my last post about it (more to come too!). It is my go-to for short text files to keep information handy like parking spots, phone numbers entered on the fly, etc. It's my digital scrap paper with the added ability to shoot these little snippets of text to all sorts of handy places.

OmniFocus is something I write fairly often about. It's about as important as my iPhone at this point.

Sparrow is back! For me anyway. I was using Mail.app for all of my accounts but I have quite a few and it got confusing. Breaking them out and serving my gmail accounts from a sad, deprecated, likely-no-longer-supported app seemed like the marginally right thing to do. Sad. Very sad.

Mail - Yuck. Although, VIPs are a nice feature, I'll admit.

The Dock

Phone - Yes Dialvetica is gone, and has made room for the stock Phone app. I'm sad that Dialvetica no longer seems like it will be getting any support or new versions (last update in December 2011) but Phone gets the job done.

Messages seems to have been fixed from the perspective of iMessage sending things to all of the right devices. Messages on the Macbook Air now seems to work with the advent of Mountain Lion and having a cohesive messaging solution that does what it supposed to do is as surprising as it is handy.

Trillian has only gotten better and better. I use it constantly as I swap from the laptop to the phone, back to the laptop, and so on with each having the same messages completely in sync. It's a staple for me and extremely stable and capable. Highly recommended.

Launch Center Pro keeps adding new Actions for apps and getting more and more useful. I haven't updated my Actions screen for a while but here's what it looks like for now. I'll be changing this soon to integrate some of Nebulous Notes new features and make better use of the screen real estate.

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So there it is. A whirlwind tour of the Home screen. I hope it helps and if you have any questions or comments, drop me line to @jeffhunsberger on app.net or Twitter.

Building a Better iPad Outliner (with Nebulous Notes)

I own OmniOutliner. It's a fantastic app when you've got a job to do on your Mac. However, I've written before about how frustrating the sync options are -- the Omni method of going back and forth between the Mac and iPad versions of OmniOutliner just doesn't work for me. It's awkward and assumes I have a decent data connection. Sadly this is often not the case in conference rooms that sometimes do a passable impersonation of a lead-lined coffin.

What I'm left to do is create a new outline for my meeting on the iPad and then find a way to merge it back into my larger weekly meeting outline file on the Mac. It basically makes my iPad useless for taking meeting notes in OmniOutliner because the steps necessary to go back and forth are too much to bother with.

Up until yesterday, I was hauling my 13" Macbook Air around from room to room, keeping a large outline of the week's meetings in nvALT. Since my machine was doing a backup yesterday, I cracked out the iPad and decided to figure out a way to solve my outlining problems once and for all.

My workflow relies heavily on two things -- Dropbox and text files. Dropbox is the hub for all documents and does a great job syncing things back and forth between devices as well as home and work. The key to working with these files on the iPad is having an app that works well with Dropbox (and there are many) but also has the capacity to create a clear, easy-to-read, well-indented meeting outline.

There's no clear winner on the latter part of that requirement so I enlisted the help of Nebulous Notes, a universal app which I've been using on my iOS devices for some time. It makes use of TextExpander, markdown and has a great macro feature which I thought might take advantage of to replace my iPad's OmniOutliner for good (or until they make sync work the way I need it to).

My meeting notes consist of a header which contains the meeting name and a time-date stamp. I have had a TextExpander macro made for this for years and the naming consistency has helped me find many a meeting entry over that time. I just type "newmeeting" and it fires a macro that puts the cursor right where I need it.

- **%| %m%d%Y %H%M%p**

Once the meeting header is set up, I need a new line a tab and a hyphen so that markdown formatting can take over, creating nice, easy-to-read indentation. While there are some ways that Nebulous helps out of the box, such as providing a "Tab" button, it was still a lot of taps to enter the new line, hit the Tab toolbar button, hit the keyboard alternate button, find the hyphen, tap that, enter a space, etc.

Nebulous also supports custom macros in addition to the canned (albeit helpful) ones already on the toolbar. Custom macros can be put on the toolbar for quick access as well. All of a sudden this ad hoc, plain text outlining tool starting looking much easier...

nebulous macro palette

The first macro is one that creates a new line, single tab and a hyphen as described above.

[return]$tab- 

Seems easy enough but it saves a ton of keystrokes and tapping. Now, when I'm on the end of a topic line, a simple button tap sends me into the details. But what if I want to create two levels of detail? Simple, another macro with two tabs. The last piece was to create another macro to add a hyphen when needed instead of the three-tap method I was current dealing with. (I realize the "slide the finger to quickly access the alternative keyboard" trick works on the iPad but it takes far longer than hitting one of Nebulous' macro buttons.)

Just by setting up those few macros, I have create a fully-realized meeting outline tool in markdown using Nebulous Notes. The outline in the same format I've been using for years and is searchable, extensible and ubiquitous thanks to Dropbox. The beauty of this is, after the meeting is over, the notes I've just taken are ready back at my desk -- they can be inserted into an email to the team with a simple copy/paste.

markdown version of the outline

nebulous' html rendering of the outline

It's always worth taking a look at old processes and see what you can improve. If you have to do something more than a few times, it might be time to see if you can automate it, or least take some of the pain out of it. By removing friction, you're not only making yourself more productive but you're also taking away some of the frustration that keeps you from doing things in the first place.

Which Apps I Use (and When)

One of the big focus areas for iOS developers lately is the creation of task and reminder apps. Being a heavy OmniFocus user, the thought of splitting my focus isn't one that I look forward to. Sure, I like checking out new apps now and then, but putting tasks in the iOS Reminders app, OmniFocus and yet another app seems like I'll end up missing something.

Enter Checkmark by builtbysnowman, a new app that helps you remember things you need to do, but focusing more on where you are doing things rather than just having good ways of managing your lists.

After buying the app, and testing it out briefly, it is clear the app is slick and has merit but it is causing me, yet again, to rethink my tool selection to find the best combination of tools for the jobs at hand.

I have the following apps on my phone being used for some very specific functions:

Task and List Management

• OmniFocus - Main task/project repository. Useful for everything. Does location-awareness and integrates with Siri (sort of).
• Checkmark - Location-based reminders only(?)
• Due - Useful for pulling recurring, reminder-type tasks out of my Calendar ("take out trash", etc)
• Reminders - Stock Apple app. Useful but hardly idea. Just used to shuttle things from Siri to OmniFocus.
• Ita - Gorgeous but never used.

Writing and Note Management

• Drafts - Useful for quick, "reminder-like" notes.
• Scratch - Another quick text entry tool, like Drafts. Testing it out.
• Writing Kit - This is the best app for writing on the iPad. By far. Hands down.
• Nebulous Notes - Still my favorite Dropbox text file editor.
• Byword - I generally use the Mac version (writing in it right now)
• Notesy - I want to like this but had stability issues. Waiting...
• Elements - Some great parts, but rarely used.

How Do I Decide Which App To Use?

Having this many tools makes it critical for me to be targeted with how each app should be used. Like lots of people who post about this stuff, I feel like each tool is not quite up to the task. I keep downloading each new thing, expecting it to be the final piece of the puzzle only to find it is ever-so-slightly imperfect.

The current task-tracking tool breakdown, for today anyway, is to use OmniFocus for capturing tasks that are related to projects. If it is something related to a project or a person I have a context for, OmniFocus is also a natural choice.

For single tasks or tasks that are tied to a specific place, I've started using the fairly-amazing Checkmark. So far the app has been performing really well in all of my tests and the interface is slick as hell. As I've never really used the location-based reminders in OmniFocus, this is scratching the itch for ephemeral needs. I will continue to put it to work and expect I'll follow up with some sort of tech note on this site at some point.

Checkmark also does time-based tasks, which I have started using as well. Previous to that, I was using a mix of OmniFocus or my calendar, both of which aren't really the best tool for the job. Due was in the mix for a while, and it was well-suited to the task, but having things spread out over so many tools is disorienting and just doesn't sit well with my somewhat-well-ordered-and-organized mind. I generally want the best tool for the job, but I want to use the least amount of tools possible. Adding more tools just adds more friction.

For recurring events, since Checkmark doesn't have support for them, I continue to use Due. As mentioned above, Fantastical works for this but it always felt like pushing a boulder up a hill. I'll still use Fantastical to set up things like birthdays and actual events, but recurring reminders are now much better served using Due.

The Apple Reminders app only really comes into play via OmniFocus, making use of the makeshift Siri integration. Using Siri, I can integrate iCloud and Siri's insertion of tasks into OmniFocus, which has saved me a ton of time over the last few months.

When I need to write something down that isn't task-related and anywhere between a few words to a sentence or two, the two apps I turn to are Drafts and Scratch. Given how easy it is to make nice Markdown changes in Scratch, I've been using that more. I'd say Scratch is still in a beta state for me. It's an impressive app so far, however. If I could get Scratch's "append to Dropbox file" to work in the iOS6 beta I'm sure I could find some interesting uses as well...

Writing Kit is an amazing iPad editor (in fact I've written this post using it). I feel dumb not having used it sooner and I can't recommend it enough. I have the notes for an upcoming review/recommendation post to explain exactly what makes it so great but, in the meantime, just go buy it.

Nebulous Notes is still a staple for editing Markdown notes for work. It works well for a lot of things and does a decent job of avoiding Dropbox conflicts, although they still happen occasionally if I'm swapping back and forth between my Mac and iPad.

~~~

For me, keeping things as simple as possible in a very hectic work (and home) environment is paramount. Cluttering up my devices with a bunch of apps that are half-solutions doesn't really help me much because adding any level of friction just means that I won't record something or remember something or be reminded of something important. Friction can be anything from not being able to find an app you need when you need it to having to think for a half-second about what the best way to record something is.

Do I use Due or Checkmark to set a reminder? Do I use OmniFocus? Wait, is there a project for that? Does it make sense to put it in a particular context? Will I need to transfer this task to my main OmniFocus database at some point? Let's look at how I make some of these calls...

I will generally follow the decision tree outlined below to determine which reminder app to use:

1. Is it a simple recurring task? If yes, use Due. If no, go to 2.
2. Is it a complicated recurring task? If yes, go to 4, if no, go to 3.
3. Is this a simple, one-step task? If yes, use Checkmark If no, go to 4.
4. Use OmniFocus.

How should I set a timer?

Due has timers, but Siri is so dead simple I prefer using it. I guess if I have to be sneaky and silent when I need to time something one day, I'll use Due but how often does something like that come up? I'd guess nearly never. At least I have alternatives..?

I need to write something. How do I choose which tool to use?

1. Is it really short? Like noting where I parked or someone's phone number? Use Scratch or Drafts (Scratch is currently on the Home Page for this purpose).
2. Is it a piece for the website? Use Byword on my Mac, or Writing Kit on my iPad. I don't use my iPhone for writing posts.
3. Is it longer than a few lines but not for the website? Then I almost always use nvALT on my Mac and Nebulous Notes on my iOS devices. Whatever it is gets synced to Dropbox.
4. Is it really long? Use Scrivener or Byword (although I recently wrote a very long work document in nvALT -- I didn't know it would grow to the length it did and nvALT worked pretty damn well. It looked gorgeous with my output from Marked too.)*

So there you have it. My streamlined decision trees for which tool I use and when. I try to keep it as simple as possible but still use the best tool for the job. I consider myself lucky that there are so many great tools out there to make me more effective wherever I happen to be.

Echosphere Note: Frederico Viticci's iOS Wish List Post

Frederico Viticci writes good stuff. His latest article about iOS features he wants to see is a long piece detailing dozens of interesting ideas. Some of them are feasible, even useful, but others seem like they are missing the point of what most users want from their iOS device and would only increase the feature bloat that is making iOS more difficult to maintain (given the number of bugs that have crept into the OS in recent releases) and harder for new users to come to grips with.

Some of his ideas are "expert" level and could be implemented through settings screens. I think most of this higher level functionality would be useless to most users however or, even worse, degrade the experience of people who just want to use their phone to get stuff done.

Other ideas Viticci presented fall in the "why would I ever want to do that, even if I could?" category.

I wanted to go through his list and add comments where I took issue (or agreed fully) with his thoughts. This isn't a full run-down on his ideas, however, and I'd encourage everyone to head to macstories to read the full treatise.

iOS 6 Wishes

Sync browser tabs through iCloud: I have no idea why I'd ever want to do that. So many websites aren't really that useful on the iPhone and with all of the link sharing/link saving applications and websites (Pinboard, Instapaper, etc), I use my computer to view websites I specifically don't want to see on my phone or iPad.

Facebook integration: Don't even get me started on Facebook. It needs to stay as far away from me as possible and integrating it into the phone will just make its annoyance more ubiquitous. I'd rather they find ways to diminish its presence and given that Facebook is, in some important ways, a competitor to Apple I can't see them ever doing this for their own sake.

Search in All Mailboxes: Interesting but impossible idea. Searching offline mail folders from a phone would require a server archiving and indexing component that would be too difficult to even envision let alone implement. How would you feel about Apple having an indexed version of all of your email, no matter which service handled the email originally? That's the only way it could be done though.

Copy link and text in App Store, Sharing options in App Store and iTunes wish list: Good ideas but not too important in the scheme of things. It's one of those things that I can't see a lot of users making use of.

Per-contact read iMessage status: I'd like this but it would be a pain to implement and actually use. It's one of those expert level things I mentioned above. I would hope "fixing iMessage" would rank higher than this...

Mail-style rich text system-wide: I guess. I personally don't use rich text if I can avoid it and I can see where a writer would want something like this but all I can envision is getting emails from my mother with blue backgrounds and comic sans fonts and shudder at the thought. I'd blame Frederico for each one of those emails...

AirDrop: I love this idea but it does belie the whole notion of using iOS as a simple device devoid of a file system (on the surface anyway). Viticci makes it sound some neat and interesting but where do those files go? How do you open them? How do you send them to the apps that need to handle them? I'd prefer Apple concentrate on fixing iCloud.

Move multiple icons at once: Terrible idea.

Rethink the iOS Home screen concept and Rethinking iOS Multitasking: I like the idea of live icons with the ability to have the current weather on an icon or a cloud when it's cloudy and maybe a temperature display. There's a lot you can do with that idea. But the Home screen metaphor is going nowhere and the current handling of multitasking is going nowhere either. I am not averse to a "running apps" page at the end of my screens list, but the point of the Home button interaction to bring up the running apps is not to keep them sequestered where they are out of the way but to make it fast to access the last few apps you used. The double-tapped Home button is annoying at times but I'd rather move that control to something more obvious and less "clicky" than completely blow up the paradigm for a mis-guided sort of convenience. Regardless, the way the the OS itself multitasks is pretty much perfect for a good blend of preservation of battery life and usability.

Deeper Gmail integration: Isn't that why Sparrow exists? Most people don't use Gmail, instead using their work's Exchange, MSN, Yahoo! and others, so enabling these very Google-specific features wouldn't be the typical sort of wide-brush approach that is common to Apple's development. Would I like it? Sure. Will it happen? Nope.

Automatic app updates option: OK. I can somewhat agree to this, as a developer, but there are things like data caps, bad WiFi connections and other things that are very connection-specific that make this type of updating problematic. As someone who has to deal with users and connectivity issues a lot, I can assure you, not everyone enjoys the same level of connectivity as the most tech savvy of us.

Open up Siri: Yes, sure. That'd be nice but first concentrate on "Fix Siri".

Better inter-app communication: I think this will definitely be a big feature consideration of future OS versions but it has a large number of problems for implementation, not the least of which is security.

Improve Notification Center: Yes, yes, a thousand times yes

Make iOS devices aware of each other’s presence: I am not sure I'd like this but I am sure they'd allow those of us who like privacy and dislike most people to turn it off.

Bring AIM to iMessage for iOS, and let us selectively mute threads: They need to fix iMessage first. That shit is severely broken, especially when integrating it with my Mac. (iMessage beta actually broke iMessage so badly on my phone I had to delete it from my machine and remove all traces of it to get my phone's iMessage to work again. Crazy!)

Calculations in Spotlight: That'd be nice but if you really want to be that type of power user, you should be using Launchbar already. And the rest of the user population wouldn't use it if it was there.

Let users change default apps: That would be great. It would likely be problematic for them to implement (or for us to use) but still a great addition to the OS.

Make Notification Center for iPad Mountain Lion-like: Sure. Sounds great.

Improve Notes with Mountain Lion features: Who uses Notes? I only know one person who uses the Notes in iOS but it's only because she is somewhat stubborn. For someone who wants an "improved" notes, they should rush out and buy Drafts or Nebulous Notes immediately.

Documents UI for iCloud: This should probably be Apple's first priority. iCloud is so essential to the company's future and the current implementation needs a lot of work. No iWork integration yet? Really, Apple?

VIP contacts for Mail and Messages: I love the idea of VIP contacts.

Easy access to WiFi, Bluetooth switches: At the very least allow developers to build apps to do this...

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I disagreed with a lot of what Viticci says in his wish list but it was an enjoyable read. It gave me a lot to think about. Thanks, Frederico!

Guest Post: Scott Roberts & his iPhone Home Screen

Scott is a long-time Apple user and was the friend who got me into using MacBooks in the first place. He has an IT-focused job and he uses technology in many parts of his life. Thanks for the contribution, Scott.

Jeff and I discuss useful apps and what we keep on our home screens fairly often. The iPhone app store really needs some smart filtering system so you can hide all the things you don't want to see. For this reason I frequently ask my friends what they keep on their home screen and what apps they use the most often.

Row One

Phone sits in the first spot after being removed from the bottom bar. Realizing I don't make phone calls all that often, but still needing quick access to the phone, it's held this spot ever since.

Jeff has preached the usefulness of 1Password to me for quite a while and a few months ago I made the switch. They also seem to be a sponsor of the 5by5 network quite often. Being able to keep different and complicated passwords by site is totally invaluable.

The base Calendar hooked to Google and exchange currently takes care of what I need.

The Clock scores the fourth spot because I'm always turning alarms on and off. Some more intelligent scheduling of alarm times by either this app, or possibly some other third party could move this off my home page.

Row Two

Camera gets this spot for quick access. Between this and being able to access the camera from the lock screen I'm less likely to miss pictures I want to capture.

With the recent changes to the stock Photos app, I've all but stopped using other photo editing apps I've purchased.

Instagram is the only photo sharing thing I use.

The Utilities Folder contains Settings, Calculator, App Store, and Flashlight. Things shuffle in and out of this grab bag folder. Flashlight was recently added as it ends up getting a lot of use when moving my Apple TV from the living room to another room. It's dark behind those TVs.

Row Three

Maps gets quite a bit of use checking the traffic for my trip home.

Safari gets used quite a bit to look up food allergy information for myself.

Reeder is hands down the best way to keep up with my Google Reader RSS feeds.

Anything that looks worth reading that I don't have time to digest but I want to hang on to goes right into Instapaper for reading later.

Row Four

Dangerous weather plagues my area of the US and TWCMax sees a lot of use all the time. The stock Weather app needs radar, hourly forecast information, and push notifications for warnings.

Instacast is used almost every day on my commute to and from work.

Nebulous has become my go-to note-taking app. Using this with Dropbox keeps me from taking a pad of paper into most meetings these days.

Remote keeps the Apple TV in line. Do what I say little black box!

Home Row

When is Messages not open? Like most people these days, I text more than I talk.

BeejiveIM keeps me connected where Messages leaves off. With the phone in my pocket it seems like I'm always available.

Mail, love it or hate it, it's probably used the most next to Messages.

Tweetbot was quickly purchased and replaced the original Twitter app when the last horrible update came out.

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I'd like to thank Jeff for all the great information he posts about his workflows. Reading his posts helps me analyze how I do or don't manage to get things done.