Filed under: iTunes, Software Update, iPhone, iPod touch
iTunes 9.0.2 adds extra home screens to app management
It's funny -- when the iPhone App Store first opened up, the first thing I asked for next was a way to manage apps from directly within iTunes. But when that finally did show up, I was still left unsatisfied for some reason. I'm not sure why -- app management offers drag-and-drop functionality with your app icons, and that's about the easiest way to organize things across the home screens. But for me, it still seems unwieldy somehow -- dragging icons onto full pages stlll creates empty pages, and dragging icons between screens is awkward to me. I'm not an interface designer, but having more than one home screen open at a time seems like it would be nice, and being able to assign my own tags and categories to apps (combined with an auto-sort function) seems nicer. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that we can manage apps from iTunes, but it just seems harder than it should be.
Fortunately, iTunes 9.0.2 snuck a few updates to the system under our radar last week -- you can now put more than 176 apps in the organizer, and those will move on to grayed-out homescreens. You can still access them on the iPhone by using Spotlight, but those grayed-out homescreens only serve as a buffer to hold your overflow apps while you're organizing them. Doesn't really help the actual experience of sorting apps, but it should give you some breathing space when dealing with lots and lots of apps.
Speaking of buffers, it would also be nice to have a "shelf" to store app icons on while you're moving them around (you can use the bottom 4 apps as a minishelf, but that's not really enough). Maybe you could pile them into different areas on a screen and then drag them in the way you want onto your homescreens. Like I said, it's great that we do finally have an app management system in iTunes. But my feeling is that it's a little too much like the awkward iPhone-based system, especially with large numbers of apps, to be much help.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Aaron Berk said 11:03AM on 11-04-2009
I know exactly why it doesn't satisfy...
There is no way to create a collection of apps. For example, let's say you have a list of "Must Have Apps" but need to restore your iPhone or iPod touch for some reason. Once you restore, you need to remember which apps you HAD on your phone, let alone where to put them. Apple needs to add the ability to create "Playlists" or "Configurations" for your apps too so you can select groups of apps to be on your device at any one time. For the life of me, I can't believe this isn't a common request.
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S said 11:52AM on 11-04-2009
Not a common request because that scenario isn't true. Your iPod touch or iPhone backs up every time it's synced, so if you restore your device it will be identical to its previous state. You can use each home screen as a "set," the only thing you're missing is a label at the top, but I can't see how that would matter since you set it up in the first place.
My main screen are my vital apps, then #2 is informational apps (NowPlaying, Shazam, WeatherBug), #3 is Games, #4 is shopping aids (Amazon, Craigslist, the app that reads barcodes and prices items), etc.
Aaron Berk said 12:50PM on 11-04-2009
The scenario is true. As with computers, there are times when even a backup doesn't suffice and can become corrupt and needs to be deleted.
Hobbes said 12:57PM on 11-04-2009
If your backup gets corrupted, then there isn't much iTunes can do to help you with that. That goes for any kinds of backups.
Aaron Berk said 1:29PM on 11-04-2009
True, but if you had the ability to create a group of apps called "My Favorite Apps" it would only take one click to install all of those apps on the device if you had no backup to restore from, as opposed to having to go through your entire list (some have thousands of apps) and pick the ones you want to have on your phone.
John said 9:07AM on 11-04-2009
Maybe they should just integrate page templates where it can auto-arrange apps based on category (games, productivity, social) and then rearrange them based on how much you actually use the app (or alphabetically).
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Galley said 9:30AM on 11-04-2009
Yeah, that's how many Palm launchers worked. You could sort by app name, category, alphabetically, or most used.
Ryan said 9:42AM on 11-04-2009
John, I love that idea. I would prefer to have a way through iTunes to organize and search through my apps by category.
Justin said 9:41AM on 11-04-2009
What I really want to see is a Launch Count and a Last Launched date for each app. That'd make it easier to see what I'm actually using and what I'm not.
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artaxerxes said 12:00PM on 11-04-2009
Are you saying we can find the hidden apps from Spotlight? So I can hide apps that I don't want there... like the useless ones from Apple that I never use... STOCKS!
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jay said 9:41AM on 11-04-2009
I would like to see a theme list. Where I could arrange screens then save as a theme and then arrange new ones. This way I could have a set of apps that I want for traveling, a set for regular work, and a set for whatever else... Many sets/themes and I could easily select a set, sync, and go.
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milkmage said 9:56AM on 11-04-2009
desktop management is better than nothing, but the implementation is poor. why are we limited to one column of home screens? it'd be much better if got a layout similar to the "Featured Galleries" on the right side of this page. 12 screens, 3 across x 4 high would show all of the home screens w/o the need to drag/scroll between screens 1 and 6 (for example) in the current layout.
why can't I scroll up and down to change pages on the phone itself? and why can't I continue to scroll right to get back to page 1? doesn't make sense to scroll all the way back (to the left) form the last page to the first. why does it have to snap to one page at a time, why can't we snap to the next column of apps instead of the whole page.
while I'm at it.. provide a user defined option to show the icons at 75%, so I can squeeze another row or column onto each page.
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NateF said 9:56AM on 11-04-2009
"being able to assign my own tags and categories to apps (combined with an auto-sort function) seems nicer"
Agreed 110%.
At the very least the iPhone should be able to present apps in Genre view like iTunes 9 already does.
What's interesting about that view is not only can you pick placeholder icons for each genre, but there are 20 genres in total...the *exact* number of total apps that can fit on one home screen.
So I almost wonder if Apple is planning to introduce this feature as part of OS 4.0. They've got to do something.
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Paul Sorensen said 10:13AM on 11-04-2009
This is something that you don't do everyday — and probably the most important thing for apple to achieve is an intuitive user interface. A lot of non-geeks use iPhones and they should be able to use this feature without having to think. A slight loss of efficiency is worth the absolute intuitiveness of this interface.
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Fred O said 10:38AM on 11-04-2009
I'd like to be able to change the icon of an app.
I have a great app that I "updated" yesterday. The only real change to the app was a ridiculous icon that is very embarrassing.
Get info shows the icon but it isn't editable. I may have to delete the app if I can't fix this.
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OWRC said 10:53AM on 11-04-2009
I 'd like to be able to create folders and fill those with the apps of my choosing as can be done with jailbroken phones and/or scroll up and down on a page as could be done in the old days of springboard. With side and up/down scrolling I could better organise genre of apps on single pages.
hmlong said 1:07PM on 11-04-2009
Why do you need a "shelf"? Just delete them and then drag them back over to the proper page from the master list on the left?
But like most everyone, I'd still prefer to be able to create named folders on the Home screen.
In fact, I'd eliminate the multiple swipe icon screens for the following layout:
1) A "Home" screen with icons and folders.
2) Swipe left from Home for the search screen.
3) Swipe right from Home for the "multitasking" running applications screen. (grin)
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Nick said 1:38PM on 11-04-2009
Not an app launcher or substitute for springbox, but appbutler.com (iphone.appbutler.com) allows you to place spacers icons and category icons onto your home screens that will allow you to arrange apps in a way that is more logical for you.
The one problem that I have had is that because the spacers and category icons are bookmarks that get saved by Safari, they must be named as it impossible to add an unnamed bookmark to the home screen. To get around this all my icons are named ".".
By the way, I am in no way affiliated with these people, just a fairly happy user.
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Brian said 2:25PM on 11-04-2009
i dont understand how there still isnt alphabetical listing.. that seems like it would make the most sense (and should probably be on by default)
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Andrew Lih said 7:31PM on 11-04-2009
NO JB REQUIRED! I get 16 pages by using this tactic!
If u wanna make iPhone show more than 11 pages, just drag an app from the first page (must be a default app. eg. voice memos, weather…etc) to the last page. Then drag another app from either page 2~9 and the default app you drag will be place into the next page which you can’t see. At last, drag an app from second page and fill up the empty space of the default app. Before restarting your iPhone, check! your first page has to be full, also the last page. After all the double check, restart your iPhone or iPod Touch. You’ll get an extra page! Enjoy!
P.S. Remember not to use iTunes to mange your app’s position, or you will get back to 11 pages!
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