Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, iPhone, App Store
Our iPhone home screens
We were recently inspired by the First&20 project, which presents the home screens of some notable iPhone users. So, we've taken screenshots of our own iPhone home screens for a little comparison.Once you've purchased an app, you audition it on your phone. Its usefulness determines its spot on the phone. For most of us, only the top apps - those we use most often or love the most - make it to the home screen. While browsing the results, we noticed some trends.
- Of the 11 bloggers who participated, seven had a Twitter app on their homescreen. Twitterrific was the most popular (Aron, Chris, Mike Schramm and me), followed by TweetDeck (Kevin and Brett) and finally Twitterfon (Erica).
- Only three of us had an IM app, including Beejive (Aron and Victor) and Yammer (Kevin).
- Six of us edited the default dock, most notably Kevin whose tricked-out iPhone is the envy of us all.
- All but one (Kevin) had the Maps app on the homepage
- Five of us have some sort of productivity app. The most popular is Daylite Touch (Steve and me). Mindmeister, Doris and Toodledo (Brett, Kevin and Victor, respectively) are tied with one each.
- Brett, Chris, Erica, Kevin and I all had less than five bars of connectivity.
- Mike Schramm has the most unread email messages. He's the popular one.
What's on your home screen?
Gallery: TUAW Bloggers' iPhone home screens
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Carl Bender said 11:42AM on 10-05-2009
I am wondering why the Safari and Mail icons are different on the iPhone than what I have on my iTouch. Same for Calendar and Facebook. Interesting.
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Carl Bender said 11:44AM on 10-05-2009
On closer inspection of the actual screens, they are the same. What is the screen shot that illustrates the posting? That is the different look I was referring to in my previous post.
Michael Jones said 11:52AM on 10-05-2009
That's a screenshot of a jailbroken iPhone. The default icons are the same on both the iPhone and the iPod touch.
Joe said 12:16PM on 10-05-2009
The jailbroken shot is actually enough incentive for me to not change it. Different doesn't equal better. Apple has some really good graphic designers, and they do a better job than I could do. Why give myself all that extra work, especially when it involves some risk of compatibility and stability issues, just to make a custom design that isn't as nice?
robogobo said 4:37PM on 10-05-2009
@Michael Jones
That's a screenshot of a jailbroken iPhone *with a stupid winterboard theme*. Lest non JBers think JBing changes the look of the default screen.
julian said 11:42AM on 10-05-2009
thats an awesome home screen....
the dock and the bluish Aurora = glee
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BeyondtheTech said 11:45AM on 10-05-2009
Must...resist...jailbreaking... Grrr...
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Ryan said 12:28PM on 10-05-2009
Why?
I see people posting this kind of stuff but have never figured out why. My phone is jailbroken to get a couple features that I wish the iPhone had, am I missing very obvious here?
Ryan Trevisol said 1:18PM on 10-05-2009
The five-icon dock is almost worth it. I had a 5-icon dock with a cover-flow style icon set for it. That was awesome. . . . seeing Aron's, it makes me almost want to jailbreak.
That and SBSettings.
Konrad said 2:22PM on 10-05-2009
Qtweeter. And the Nextel Chirp. My only reasons to jailbreak.
Penny Aguilar said 11:45AM on 10-05-2009
No pretty face GF buttons? No cute kids or pets? Nerds. Boring home screens.
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Dyranios said 11:48AM on 10-05-2009
The only one worth looking at was the jailbroken one, the rest are boring as hell (thanks to Apple)
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dave said 11:57AM on 10-05-2009
Damn, you guys like some ugly ass productivity apps.
1st and 20 seems to be ruled by designers, and Things wins hands down. I guess thats the difference between designers and writers/geeks.
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Christian said 12:49PM on 10-05-2009
Completely agree. What I got out of this is that a few TUAW prefer to jailbreak their phones – which hopefully doesn't lead to them later bitching about apps not working or stability problems – and their default app selection tends to be... erm... pedestrian.
That jailbroken home screen looks as ugly as a spray-painted and riced up 1990s Honda Civic.
Victor Agreda Jr said 1:04PM on 10-05-2009
I recently updated mine from Toodledo (which has a lot more features in many ways than Things, but just wasn't doing it for me) to Things... but please remember this is just our HOME screens. One screen. Like judging an outfit based on one shoe, isn't it?
totoro said 11:55AM on 10-05-2009
"Six of us edited the default dock"
I only see 2 edited docks-Aron has 5 icons, not 4 (very nice), and Kevin has a completely different theme. Or were you just talking icon placement?
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Michael said 11:56AM on 10-05-2009
I think that home screen is pretty fugly if you ask me. Not to brag, but mine on the other hand....http://idzr.org/5ihi.
Also...why in the world are you all not using Tweetie. Seriously? All other twitter apps fail in comparison.
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Steven said 11:59AM on 10-05-2009
Agree - the default icons/background (theme, I guess you could call it) is appallingly ugly.
PowerHouse said 12:09PM on 10-05-2009
Dude, that's REALLY nice! I just can't do the jailbreaking thing, but you guys that do, rock!
John Coxon said 8:58AM on 10-06-2009
Completely agree, Tweetie is better than Twitterific any day. Can't wait for the new version of Tweetie to come out, and I can't believe none of you are using it!