iPhone Home Screen

There have been a lot of changes to my iOS home screen over the last year. I switched from my iPhone 6 back to my iPhone after I discovered how much I hated the side power button and the inconvenient size of the iPhone 6. A few weeks before the iPhone was released, I decided to go back to the iPhone 6 and get used to the size and see if my opinions changed. The short story is that they hadn’t. The side power button, while understandably within easy reach of the thumb, more often than not also lowers or raises the volume on the other side of the phone. It is an aggravation, but one I had resigned to live with as they wouldn’t be changing it any time soon.

The main reason I switched back was the anticipation of Touch in iPhone apps. I could see there was some great potential there, and I wasn’t disappointed in that regard. As it stands, just a few weeks after the release of the new iPhone, the majority of the apps on my home screen support Touch actions, and they really do enhance the functionality of the phone in some surprising ways.

Because I wasn’t sure if the larger phone size would “stick,” I kept an empty sixth row of icons on the bottom of the screen. Doing so would facilitate an easy switch back to the and it was my escape hatch back to my preferred size phone. I ended up liking the space down there and left it alone, even though I have surely settled on the iPhone. While the size still sucks, the speed of the is impressive, and the new features like Touch and “Hey ” support get used enough to make it worthwhile.

Row One

Editorial is still my go-to long-form text editor and main way to view my taskpaper task lists. I’m not even using the power of Python workflows and still find it an incredible app in terms of functionality and polish.

Fantastical remains my favorite calendar app on iOS. With 3DTouch giving you quick access to the creation of a new event, calendar search, and a preview of your next meeting, it remains on the home screen and gets very heavy use throughout the day. I still have a folder with less-used apps in it. These are generally apps that get swapped out for their rival counterparts (Weatherunderground and Storm, or Twitterific and Tweetbot come to mind).

VSCOcam is still an amazing iOS photo app. For taking photos as well as having a ton of great processing features, it stands far above the other photo apps I have used. adds quick access to the camera and importing photos, among other things. Row is a vital piece of technology at this point. If you’re not using a password manager, frankly, you are nuts. is the best of the bunch. Is a great little app. I love that it has share sheet integration so I can share links from any app. It took over the duties from Pushpin.