(See August, September, October home screens)
First home screen
On the first/main home screen, the Microsoft Todo app in the Dock has been replaced with Reminders. I don’t use either app much on the phone, but Reminders is marginally more useful for the one purpose it serves.
As we’ve discussed before, I use Microsoft Todo as a task manager organised according to the PARA principle, with a list of each of my Projects. This site is one such project, and it lists both ideas for future posts as well as improvements to the site itself. In that role, I use it more on the iPad and on my Mac. That’s why on the iPhone it’s been moved out of the Dock and the main home screen.
The rest of the first screen remains unchanged:
- Drafts for all-purpose text capture. I’m writing this blog post in Drafts
- Reminders
- Safari (with the 1Blocker content blocker)
- Launch Center Pro (a beloved app, but whose use diminishes with each passing month. I would not be surprised if something changed here soon)
- Fantastical: I love it for its natural-language input. Typing “Call with {Name} at 6pm tomorrow for 20 minutes alert ten minutes” is now second nature. I also have an iOS Text Replacement so that typing “tenm” auto-expands to “alert ten minutes”
- Photos, Music: I use these default iOS apps multiple times everyday
- Whatsapp, iMessage, Telegram, Mail: messaging and email. Daily use
- Fitbit: we’ve discussed this many times before. I use my Fitbit to maintain a basic level of activity daily: 5000 steps, 5 days of exercise, 10 hours of activity, 3 litres of water and so on.
Second home screen
The big change on the second screen is the clock widget, which displays time on the USA East Coast. I know and communicate with a few people in that time zone, so it’s useful to quickly look up the time there.
I have not picked the other apps on this screen as mindfully as on the first, but they are fairly regularly used:
- Phone, Settings: vanilla apps with no replacement
- Files: I rely heavily on iCloud Drive
- Overcast: podcasts for when I drive. I don’t commute anymore but I do drive to different places in the city for half an hour or so every day to get outdoors time.
- Books: we’ve discussed before about how Apple Books (formerly iBooks) helps foster a daily reading habit. I read a little over twenty minutes most days. This is a list of the books I’ve read this and previous years
- Reeder: my longtime RSS app. I recently bought version 5 (read the MacStories review), as I have all previous versions. I don’t read on the phone much, so this does not get a lot of use on this device.
Siri suggestions
This is what I end up using more than my actual home screens. It is the source of both my productivity and distraction. These are my suggestions as of this writing:
- I’m glad that Slack is just a swipe and tap away. This is the main communication tool at the day job.
- I don’t know why Linkedin shows up. Perhaps because I’m writing this post during the daytime on a weekday and Apple’s algorithms think the app is useful during the workday? I rarely use the app itself
- Ditto Instagram. I barely use the app. A couple of months ago, I created an account to post about coffee and home gardening, two of my other interests. But I don’t follow or scroll through other people’s feeds, so I have no idea what it’s doing here.
- Readder and Apollo: just yesterday we saw how I have unhealthy Reddit habits, and that I am checking into another thirty-day Reddit rehab. Siri suggestions is the main reason I end up launching them – after all they are nowhere on my home screens. I have since disabled them from showing up in Siri Suggestions through their settings (see how)