My iPhone Home Screen — Ni

Okay, so page one was so long in the description section, I felt it was only fair to break this up into multiples. But the good news is that it gave me an idea. I will probably do 3 or 4 of these, as I am enjoying explaining to people why I choose particular apps over others. Plus, it lets you see which apps I’ve mentioned before on here but perhaps am no longer using for one reason or another (usually because I found a better app or found I wasn’t using it as much as I had hoped).

Once again, from top-left to bottom-right (excluding the Dock. Duh.):

• App Store – Seriously, if you don’t know what this one is, then how in the world are you going to get all of those pretty icons onto your iPhone/iPod Touch?
• AppBox Pro – All hail the King of all Swiss Army Apps! This thing does a little bit of everything: battery life estimator, flashlight, currency and unit converter, loan and tip calculator, random number generator, translator, ruler, clinometer, and web app portal. This single app gave me back more iPhone home screen real estate than any other. I highly recommend picking it up.
• Transmission – This is a web app that is built-in to the Transmission BitTorrent client application. It’s incredibly cool, as it is essentially a web-based interface for managing downloads and adding new torrents to the download queue. Just turn the feature on in the preferences, make a note of your IP address (or use a dynamic DNS service), and connect using Safari on the iPhone. After saving the app to your home screen, the next time you tap on the icon, it will load the app in a separate instance of Safari with no address bar, giving the illusion of a native iPhone app.
• Glyphboard – This is another web app that masquerades as a native app once installed to the home screen. It provides you with a number of unique characters that can all be copied and pasted into other apps (like Twitter, Mail, Safari, etc.) so that you can use unique characters not available on the iPhone virtual keyboards.
• 1Password – I love the desktop version of this app and was very excited when an iPhone version was released that synchronized all of my passwords, wallet info, and secure notes. With the impending release of 1Password 3 and its ability to synchronize software licenses, this app is a must-have for any on-the-go techie.
• Stanza – This app has been collecting dust of late, due to the large volume of fall television shows I have taken it upon myself to view so you don’t have to. But it’s still the best ebook reader on the iPhone and certainly in the top three readers across all devices. Download calibre for Mac or PC to organize and sync your ebooks from your computer to your device.
• Dictionary.com – I have used quite a few different dictionary apps on my iPhone since they became available, but was always frustrated in the beginning by their dependency on network access to get their information. I can just use Google as a dictionary if I have network access. Thankfully, the team over at Dictionary.com love me and made an app that I can download and use even in Airplane Mode or on an iPod Touch in the middle of nowhere.
• Read It Later – You can thank Echofon for turning me on to this handy little tool. Whenever I encountered a link in a tweet that I wanted to check out later, I used to save the tweet as a favorite. Unfortunately, favorites aren’t exactly private and I’d always forget to go check them out anyway. But by installing this app, not only can I use Echofon to add a link to my Read It Later list (tap-and-hold the URI), and not only can I read the saved links from my iPhone, but I am reminded every time I scroll past that page that I need to check out those items the next time I’m at a computer. Plus, once I’ve read it, I can check it off my list and pretend it was never there.
• TV Forecast – I have been using this app ever since it was a web app. You simply add the TV shows you watch to a list and when you load the app, it tells you when the next episode airs. Unfortunately, with the web app, if you ever removed your cookies, you had to rebuild your list from scratch. Thankfully, the native app only loses your list if you have to completely restore your iPhone. Plus, it has added features like seeing when your TV show last aired, in case you don’t know if you missed an episode or not.
• i.TV – This app and I have had a love-hate relationship since its initial release. I have used both i.TV and What’s On? to get my television listings and while I usually prefer to use What’s On?, i.TV supports Netflix queue management. This app is on my list of apps to one day remove entirely (or at least, delegate to the back page), as there are other Netflix queue management apps and I don’t watch live TV, so I have very little use for TV listings.
• Now Playing – Another app that may one day find itself on another page, this one is also capable of Netflix queue management, but is primarily designed for giving you movie listings. It’s a great app for that, and for buying tickets if your theater supports ticket sales through Fandango.
• Shazam – I don’t keep up with new music the way that I used to, and I rarely listen to the radio. But when I do, I often hear a song that I like and will probably want to buy on iTunes one day. The problem is that I don’t listen to the radio enough to know what the name of the song is. Enter Shazam. Record 10 seconds of the song and Shazam tells you who it is. I used to use Midomi, but found that it just wasn’t as effective as Shazam.
• Wikiamo – I love Wikipedia. It’s my go-to source for anything I just want to understand better. Wikiamo is a perfect example of an app that replaced another app I was fond of recommending. If you’re a fan of wikis in general, then I also recommend WikiSnail. While it doesn’t make page two (due to its rather simplified interface and feature-set), WikiSnail is an app I use to browse all those other wikis, something Wikiamo just can’t do.
• Facebook – This app just got kicked off the front page, as I really don’t use it very often. It’s an incredibly well-designed app, but until push notifications hit, it just doesn’t serve to open it very often, since I prefer to use Facebook as an extended address book more than anything.
• Amazon.com – Another app that I love to have nearby, but don’t use that often. Last Christmas, it was very instrumental in purchasing my brother’s gift, even though I did send it to the wrong damned address.
• Bank of America – Sadly, this is still the best banking app on the iPhone. It’s nothing more than the web app with a wrapper and (I hope) a few cached images. But, when you’re in the store and you need to know if it’s okay to buy just one more keg, you’ll be glad to have this app.

And that’s it for page two of my iPhone home screen. I hope that it was as entertaining for you as it was for me. It was an interesting experience.