So today I ‘ve done a restore of my iPhone, in the hope of getting past some persistent and odd sound problems, a growing problem with missing icons when new apps installed (which had progressed from only occurring on maybe one out of five new apps straight to occurring on every new app install), and just a general high level of bad behavior.
I might post more on that later, when I ‘ve had a chance to see how the restore has sunk in “ but for now I ‘m just going to moan and groan some more about how much of a nuisance it is to deal with re-arranging app icons and home screens.
Before today ‘s restore I had attempted a reset of all settings (to no avail) last night. I had actually forgotten though that a reset of all settings included home screen arrangement “ so when all my home screens were thrown into wild disarray last night it was a surprise of the non-happy variety.
No biggie though, since I knew I ‘d be doing a restore today anyway, since the reset didn ‘t fix anything. By the time I ‘d tried the reset out, it was late enough that I was not going to attempt the restore, but not late enough to crash yet “ so I decided to do a bit of home screen gardening. I spent some time organizing my first four screens, culling some apps I decided I don ‘t use often enough to keep, and deciding on which apps deserved a place on the very first home screen, the second one, and so on.
The above might sound like a big waste of time the night before a restore. My reason for doing it was that I had some time anyway and that I then took screencaps of those first four screens with everything as I want it, and chucked them up to Flickr “ so that today I can use them as my guides to put those four screens back together. So all the thinking part was done in terms of how I wanted them arranged.
Some of you “ maybe even many of you “ are probably thinking that all of this home screen stuff could be handled much more easily. Those of you who are running a 3.0 beta (as I am) might be asking why don ‘t I use Spotlight for apps launching. Well, I do fairly often “ but a lot of times I don ‘t have a single app in mind that I want to launch, I just want to go look at my games screens and see which one I fancy at the moment. Or I may want to take a browse through a large group of apps I ‘m in the process of reviewing.
I ‘ve talked to folks who now like to just let their apps be organized alphabetically on their home screens. That just doesn ‘t work for me at all. My preferred method – or maybe it ‘s more like madness than method but it works for me “ is to do something like this:
Home Screen 1 = combo of several default apps and several most, most frequently used apps (as shown in the screencap at the top of this post). I still can ‘t make myself move more of the default apps or change any of the defaults in the dock.
Home Screen 2 = Next most frequently used apps (after those on HS 1)
Home Screen 3 = Apps being reviewed
Home Screen 4 = More apps being reviewed
Home Screen 5 = More apps that are used fairly often
Home Screen 6 = Games
Home Screen 6 = A few more games, plus some general entertainment / novelty apps
Home Screen 7 = Kids apps that my daughter likes, and audio books
Home Screen 8 = More kiddo apps and books
Home Screen 9 = The rest “ several of the built-in apps you can ‘t delete, and a few 3rd party ones that may need to be culled soon if they don ‘t start getting more frequent use
When that ‘s all setup, it works OK for me. It ‘s my best effort at organizing myself within the constraints Apple has placed on us in this area. Every time I do a restore though, the setup time to get my apps and screens as I want them pretty much kicks my ass.
Once again, I ‘ll just say I wish we could do this via iTunes or some other much more clever method than wiggly frickin ‘ icons and nudging them around the screens. I ‘d really love to see clever ways to organize apps by category, and to see some application launchers made available by Apple or others.
In the meantime, I ‘ll stick to my madness / method “ along with frequent griping about how lame it is that we don ‘t have some better tools around for this stuff of course. 🙂
What ‘s your favorite way to handle your apps and home screens?
Continue reading:
- Everything New Apple Just Announced (Septembe
- Apple Watch Pre-Order
- Apple Research Kit launches with 5 Apps
- Apple TV now only $69
TAGS: home screens, Organizing iPhone home screens
