Show Us Your iPhone Home Screen!!

Inspired by First and 20 I decided to show you my home screen on the iPhone. Also inspired by them I thought I'd do another post with the best half dozen or so of your home screens.

So here's how it works. You send me an email with a screen shot of your home screen together with a coherent description of why it's like it is and why the third party apps have earned their place. I will take the best emails and post them in a future blog post for the world to see -;). Tell me in the email how you want to be credited in the post - your bloggers name, your name, your first name, whatever. Also tell us where you come from.

OK here's my home screen:

To start with there's only one change to the Dock icons along the bottom: I got rid of the iPod icon and replaced it with Appigo Todo. I couldn't do without Todo so I stuck it there and in fact I think the iPod icon is due for relegation to page 2 entirely. I use it but only when I'm travelling or in bed at night!

The remaining 3 icons in the Dock and the 3 directly above them are the heart and soul of my iPhone existence. I use then all the time, every day and I like them just there. Why, Apple, did you think it was a good idea to have the Phone icon and the Messages icon the same colour? Where were your interface guys to tell you about colour cues? I get them mixed up all the time - hence why they are not lined up one above the other.

Next row: I don't use maps all the time but regularly enough that it earns its place there. I think it's a great app and since they added traffic for Australian major cities it's even more of a winner. Pocket Weather (AU) is an app I've blogged about before, can't do without it and the wx radar is a must have. ThinkDigits is a newbie on the home page but I'm increasingly liking it and I've written a few routines that I use regularly so it scored a spot in prime real estate. Settings gets used often enough that it stays there too.

I've already said that I think the iPod app might go to page two and the same is probably true of the Calculator app - it's currently on probation whilst I see whether ThinkDigits is a complete replacement. It's just that the Calculator is very simple to use for simple calcs. The Google app is brilliant, I like the voice recognition and it works well, as well I like the access to other Google functionality and the "figure-it-out-as-you-type" way that it manages searches. ANZ - well you have to manage your finances on the road and this is a well done little app.

Top Row: the Photo and Camera apps are used often enough that they need to be on the home screen, but they score the lowliest spot. I wish there was a simple app that replaced the Stocks app with real time data but until then it stays. I find myself using the Clock regularly because of the timers, alarms and the world clock functionality - good for working out whether I can reasonably Skype a particular person right now!

Just as a bonus, here's my page two:

The ones that are worth highlighting are:

• TramTracker - if you live in Melbourne and you use the trams you can't do without it. What's more the development team are really responsive;
• Manifesto - I've fallen right out of love with Manifesto. I think it's buggy - it only appears to deliver half of some feeds. Somebody give me a good alternative feed reader please so I can trash Manifesto;
• iLogger - this is a great app, it allows you to set up templates and then record events or places using those templates. I have one for a particular financial transaction and I've written one for recording airstrips - good because you can geotag and add photos;
• iDecide - this is a very schmick application that allows you to set up decision criteria and then to see how the options stack up against the criteria. There's good science behind it and it's a very good app;
• NAIPS for iPhone - I've already blogged about this and it only keeps getting better. Now it has charts and the ability to file and modify a flight plan. This is an absolute winner;
• CoPilot - this is a new addition. The flight planning functionality is good but I bit my lip at the price - it's the most I've paid for any app. Laurie is very responsive to queries. I found an error in the waypoint database with the second waypoint I chose - YCDE for the Australians (it is about 400nm miles away from where it should be but soon to be fixed). Laurie says that it's only the second error reported in 10 years using that database. I'll blog about this app more after some more use.
• FarFinder - this is also an absolute winner. I have a dynamic IP on my home network but with the FarFinder app on my Mac(s) and this app I can access everything on my home network from anywhere and also use the camera on Macs at home. It's a great app and the support is very prompt. It's so good I could see what DVD was in the drive and take a picture of my son watching the movie from 1,000 miles away. I texted him the photo and asked what the movie was like - not impressed LOL.

OK so now it's over to you. My email address is in my profile so send me your Home Screens and their story. BTW to take a screen shot hold down the Sleep/Wake and Home button simultaneously. The screen flashes over and it's in your photo album.