Filed under: iTunes, iPhone, iPod touch
iTunes 9 Focus: Tips for editing your iPhone apps screens
While of my colleagues are tremendously excited about Norah Jones and iTunes LP, I've got to say I was far happier to discover the new iTunes 9 iPhone application management screens that Brett touched on yesterday (Sorry, Dave!). Located in the Applications tab for each iPhone and iPod touch device, the manager lets you organize your applications on a screen-by-screen basis from the comfort of your desktop. Unfortunately, the organizer remains fairly primitive.You can...
- ...check or uncheck apps that you want to sync or not sync.
- ...drag apps around individual pages to reorder them
- ...drag apps between screens to reparent them.
- ...change page order by dragging them within the page column.
And that's pretty much it. There's no way to sort your screens alphabetically or by category. There's no way to copy or share layouts between devices. There's no undo support if you change your mind about any changes. That having been said, there are some iTunes 9 tricks that may help you better organize your applications. Here are TUAW's top four.
Use Command-Click to group apps. Command-clicking an application icon adds it to (or if already added, removes it from) the currently selected group. You can move groups all at once between pages.
Use empty pages. If you have the pages to spare, use the empty pages that iTunes makes available to you to help organize applications by "theme". For example, you can drag an empty page into, say, the page 2 position and then start filling that page with games from the other pages. Adding apps to that empty page causes another empty page to appear at the end of the list if there is room. You're limited to eight 11 pages total for your applications.
Use the dock. Your dock provides a home for up to four applications that you use the most. Docked applications appear on every page, offering the quickest access to your most-used apps. Don't feel limited to the apps that the iPhone OS defaults to. It's your dock. Use it the way that best suits you.
Use the home screen. If you have more than four apps that you need quick access to, don't forget that the first screen of apps is always just a Home button click away. Tapping the home button when viewing apps automatically jumps you to the first page. Place your high priority apps on this first page if they fall short of the urgency of the dock items.
The new Application editor is certainly a great step forward from the way things were. Here's hoping that Apple will make it even easier to manage your applications in future iTunes releases.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
smak said 1:36PM on 9-10-2009
The editor kind of sucks. It's like playing a shell game with 100 shells.
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Sean Flanagan said 1:39PM on 9-10-2009
Shift-click also works to select more than one app, a la icon view in the Finder. I'm a little irritated that click-drag doesn't work to select more than one app, however.
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nelsonh said 10:08AM on 9-11-2009
fwiw, you can have 11 pages of apps, not 8.
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uberphildo said 1:43PM on 9-10-2009
This whole thing only exists because Apple won't let you have folders on the iPod/iPhone. This is not a "feature" at all, it's a backwards, side-stepping attempt at fixing what is a blatantly obvious problem with a blatantly obvious solution.
But then again, Apple couldn't possibly give us any semblance of a file system on the iPod/iPhone, even with app folders. Why I'd want to put all of my games in an app folder called "Games" is beyond me.
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bob said 2:08PM on 9-10-2009
a folder would still only have 16 apps per page though, having folders in this manor could only prove to some with many apps to be exactly the same process of page flicking but with an extra tap to enter the folder 1st, not a great solution, just spotlight it.
Johnny said 2:54PM on 9-10-2009
Why not just make it so that you can scroll down on a page to reveal more than 16 icons? If they did that, I wouldn't even care about folders, although it might be nice, because I could just categorize each page. Apple must think most of its users are too dumb to handle scrolling in both directions.
Jeff said 7:43PM on 9-10-2009
Even if you're limited to 16 apps/folder you could name your folders Games 1 and Games 2. It's a lot cleaner and easier to manage in my opinion. I've been wanting folder since the proliferation of apps with OS 2.0.
design said 1:49PM on 9-10-2009
Easier than rearranging on your phone. Boy, was that a pain in the ass.
Create custom sticky notes for your iPhone/iPod lockscreen... http://bit.ly/wYWEN
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jonathan said 3:57PM on 9-10-2009
does anyone know if this works on a jailbroken phone using winterboard?
i dont see any home screens in my itunes, just the list of apps & icons on the left.
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Amir said 2:02PM on 9-10-2009
Does this depend on having 3.1 installed? I don't see the app arranger in iTunes 9 with 3GS running. 3.0.
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david_libby said 2:21PM on 9-10-2009
I only saw the feature once I upgraded to 3.1.
Andy said 2:04PM on 9-10-2009
My first reaction to using the app organizer function in iTunes 9 was that it is essentially the same experience as on the iPhone, but I'm touching a trackpad on my laptop instead of the iPhone screen. I'm glad to find out about the ability to grab multiple icons, but I really hoped for a more user friendly interface. The way icons slide around is frustrating and requires some strategizing. Ideally I'd be able to freely move icons around a grid layout that allows blank spots anywhere on the pages.
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Adam said 2:10PM on 9-10-2009
doesn't work for me on my 1st gen iPhone! It just shoes the list of apps on the left side, but no screen editor on the right.
:-(
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Erica Sadun said 2:10PM on 9-10-2009
Adam, upgrade to 3.1
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chakubi said 2:28PM on 9-10-2009
only works with iphone 3.1 firmware aaarrgghh i dont wona lose my JB so i guess i wait or get a a Mac and use Movement
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chakubi said 2:30PM on 9-10-2009
only works with 3.1 not worth losing my JB will wait
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Posimotion said 3:57PM on 9-10-2009
The editor is definitely a work in progress. Although they may have bundled it with the iTunes 9 release, I am sure that it will see some significant upgrades as time goes on. And as one comment mentioned, it is way easier then doing it by hand with each individual app on the phone.
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FearlessFreep said 2:56PM on 9-10-2009
Should've added: use Spotlight as an app launcher.
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Caribou said 2:58PM on 9-10-2009
Apple needs to do better. If not Folders, then SOMETHING. Ideas:
1) Category Pages:
- Unlimited pages -- have little triangles pointing off if you make more than 11.
- home button takes you to page #1.
- swipe thru pages just like today
- two-finger swipe to skip to next/prior category page
(optionally up-or-down instead of left/right, maybe)
- color code (maybe just the border) category pages for quick visual reference.
- apps stay put on the category you place them in so you can effectively group all "Games & Fun" stuff together, etc.
2) Copy late-1990's PalmOS where you could assign icons to Categories and then view either "All" or each category (I used to have "Main", "Games", and "Other").
3) Folders. Obvious and boring.
4) Spotlight - List Apps. Just gimmie a quick way to see all the names as text, with options for alphabetical, most-often-used, and most-recently-used. Text is the new GUI.
For all of the above, improve the "jiggling icons" screen a bit more. Instead of "X for Delete", have a menu of options -- Delete, Settings, Category/Folder. (there's no reason for app settings to be buried where they are -- the jiggle-menu is a perfect place)
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George Edward said 3:25PM on 9-10-2009
I agree... Folders and/or category management would be a very welcome addition indeed.