[This setup requires jailbreak]
Two nights ago I decided that my method of hiding unused icons and accessing them by Spotlight was just far too clumsy. Yes, it looked clean from the outside, but uninstalling was a real pain in the apps. I’d have to load SBSettings, un-hide the icon, wait for a respring, and then delete it. Yeah, I could have used iTunes but I don’t like syncing with the Mac unless I have to.
It was actually Diego’s post that inspired me to try the pre-release of Stacks V3 to solve my organizational problems. My goal was still the same: to make the iPhone more accessible and hide a lot of the clutter that I don’t use on a daily basis. I was strongly considering purchasing Orbit, but Patrick did point out an inherent problem with the home screen setup: if you set each home screen to store a certain kind of app, having more than 16 of those apps will mess the order up and leak onto another page. I’ve actually deleted scores of apps on my iPhone just so I could limit a particular category to one home screen. However, with Stacks I may have found a near-ideal system that allows me to organize my apps as well as easily expand specific particular categories — and all on one home screen, to boot!
It isn’t rocket science (that’s the NASA app), and all I’ve done is used the four stacks available to me and placed them on the dock of my iPhone. I have one for System, Media, Internet, and Games. These categories are broad and allow me to fit almost all of the apps I use on a regular basis right in the dock (the rest stay on the first homescreen). Tweetie, WordPress, and Midomi all access the internet so I’ve put them in one category. Snapture, Stanza, and Photogene all deal with some form of media so I’ve put them together as well. It doesn’t make perfect sense, but it works.
What’s really great is that stacks are scrollable, so I can continue to add more apps to the four categories without my home screen looking cluttered. I’ve kept the first home screen organized and use only that one on a daily basis. The rest of my home screens function as a warehouse for apps. They’re unorganized, but I can easily throw new applications into a Stack because the dock is visible from any screen. I’ve actually stopped using Spotlight and Universal Search first because I find the stacks make things so much more convenient.
I suppose all of this could be done with Categories or SBCategories, but I really like the animations on Stacks and the fact that I never have to hide any icons again. I’m technically back to four home screens, but since I never scroll past the first in my normal usage, I don’t care about how many extras I have. The only evidence of the clutter are the dots near the bottom of the screen that indicate pages, and I’m not OCD enough to let that bother me.
Continue reading:
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TAGS: home screen
