Organizing the smartphone “desktop”

There’s a bit of real estate on the Droid; thank goodness because one can never have enough. By default, my Droid came with three home screens. One index finger swipe to the right or left gets me to either of them. When I organized my home screens I decided the main home screen would include the most used and critical apps organized by category. I’ll explain how I get the best and most use out of these screens in this post. Hopefully this information will help other smartphone users, regardless of platform, who may be struggling with a method for organizing all of their handy apps.

Home screen one (or the main screen) includes quick access to my phone dialer, contacts, text messaging, voice mail, calendar, Gmail/email, and task related apps. While smartphones can do so much more, I think having the most basic apps accessible from the main screen is essential.

The inventor of GPS deserves a big ol’ hug if not some presidential medal. I am so impressed with the GPS capabilities that I will be dedicating an entire future post to this function. This means I won’t be elaborating on all of its splendor in this post but suffice to say, besides communication tools and internet access, GPS is the most essential, beneficial, satisfying, useful function there is. Many other apps take advantage of and build upon GPS functionality, too.

In addition to GPS, the navigation category on my home screen includes various mass transit tools (DC Metro map and specific transit info, NYC bus and subway information, traffic and road conditions, speed trap and police scanner information and broadcasts, etc.). Yes, if I wanted to, I could sit around all day and listen to the local police scanners to find out what my neighbors in this city are up to.

Home screens two and three also include categorized apps and widgets. How I organized these screens has a lot to do with how I organize my life. From a technical standpoint, how I’ve organized these apps by category will be explained in a separate upcoming post.

Home screen two includes what I consider my “serious” and “productive” apps. I have quick access to my personal accounts (finance, utilities, insurance, retirement, etc.) and financial tools (up to the minute stock market info, calculators, etc.). Some of the calculators are especially useful for my student loans, car buying, home buying, retirement planning and more.

Also included on home screen two are apps for my career (job search, time trackers, wireless printer access, project management, a job widget featuring one of the latest job postings, etc.), self-employment/business and productivity (access to my web sites, apps for creating and accessing Microsoft Office files, package tracking, time sheet, invoicing, etc.), reference and education (ebooks, Wikipedia and other encyclopedia tools, flash card creators, access to dictionaries, etc.), and technical (for the geek in me I’ve categorized administrative, security, virus scanning, FTP, installer, task manager and other related apps).

Last, but not least, I’ve categorized those often useful little tools like a flashlight app (yes, I can set my phone to act like a flashlight), regular calculator, unit converter, price comparison, timer, stopwatch, and even a tip calculator for when I dine out.

A lot is crammed into home screen two. I will highlight some of the apps in future posts.

Home screen three is just as “busy” as home screen two. This screen includes what I consider my “recreational” or more “personal” apps. Near the top of the list of the most useful are grocery and other shopping apps like digital coupons (including its widget), price comparison, apps that include merchant reviews (like Yelp), mall maps (yes, I can see the layout of hundreds of malls across the country), and apps specific to certain merchants (Amazon, eBay, etc.). Other useful apps include home inventory, health trackers (exercise, medications, diet/nutrition, recipes, etc.), news feeds, and weather (including live conditions and weather radar).

For the lighter side of my life I have categorized my games (Mahjong, Hearts, etc.), entertainment (movie theaters, books/ebooks, television channel guides and alerts, streaming radio stations and other music tools, etc.), and social networks (Foursquare, Twitter, Facebook, etc.).

I’ve also made some room for my hobby and travel interests. Useful apps for camera effects, Photoshop, image manipulation, etc. are organized in my photography category. For the restless and adventurous side of me, I’ve categorized airline web site access, real time flight stats, journey and trip journals, maps, and more.

Until the smartphone, my regular cell phone, PC or laptop were considered my most essential and useful life tools. While some would argue that we’ve become a society too dependent upon gadgets for every day living, there are actual benefits to having this particular gadget with you at all times. To take advantage of those benefits, compartmentalizing how you access them is essential to a satisfactory end user experience.

Related posts:

1. Grocery shopping made easier (and without killing a tree)
2. An appreciation for open source software and its creators
3. What did I do before the smartphone?
4. Re-launch of the debwire repertoire…

Tags: android, app, Business, critical apps, global positioning system, gps capabilities, grocery shopping, home screens, jobs, mobile, motorola droid, police scanners, shopping, smartphone, transit info, voice mail, widgets, wireless

This entry was posted on February 17, 2010 at 3:39 pm and is filed under Gadgets, Software, Wireless. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.