My 2017 Homescreen
Additions, subtractions, and shuffling of apps
Each year I keep posting these a little later, but per tradition, here’s a shot of my homescreen right now as we just exited 2017 and entered 2018. For reference, here’s what it looked like in 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013.
So what’s different this year? Well, first and foremost, you’ll notice the screen is quite a bit longer (though with the same number of apps), as I’m now using (and loving) the iPhone X (and yes, the “notch” vanishes in screenshots). Also gone are the names of the apps in the “dock” alongside the update to iOS 11. I like this change — those apps used enough to be in your dock shouldn’t need to be labeled.
Speaking of, we have two new dock entrants this year — huge considering my dock has been the same for the past few years.
The first one isn’t that shocking: Mail has replaced Inbox by Gmail. I still love and use Inbox, but I send and read almost all my email in Mail, whereas Inbox I mainly use to triage/snooze messages and add some reminders. And because I do much of this work on either my iPad or Mac, I felt fine not only moving this app out of my dock, but onto my second screen of apps. Plus, the app somehow still hasn’t been updated for the iPhone X. Come on, Google. Pull it together.¹
The other new dock entrant is Slack. I suspect this will surprise very few people, especially given that it’s a GV portfolio company. But while it has been on the homescreen for the past few years, and I thought it might make the jump to the dock last year, it was only this past year where it has really started to take over a lot of different workflows for me. That includes both work itself, but also a few friend groups that used to reside in Facebook Messenger have moved there. And the number of portfolio companies that invite me, as an investor, as a guest into some of their internal channels continues to grow.
Speaking of Messenger, it’s now in that bottom row above the dock, as I still use it — though I’m glad ‘Messenger Day’ is fading away. I’d still love to hide all those bubbles at the top. The app is getting too cluttered now — something which has long been the case with its parent, Facebook. Speaking of, that app still resides in the same row out of necessity, but between the annoying Videos and Marketplace tabs — neither of which I ever use and wish I could swap for other tabs — I’m just not feeling great about Facebook these days. Except for Instagram, that is, which I use perhaps more than ever thanks to Stories. What a brilliant acquisition Facebook did. Deal/steal of the century.
Speaking of Stories, you’ll notice that one app no longer on my homescreen is Snapchat. That, of course, is a direct result of Instagram’s cloning of the functionality, but also simply because my demographic/social group is more into Instagram. I was using both to post the same Stories for a while, but as expected, this grew tiresome. And Instagram is iterating like no other.
The other new app you’ll notice in the row above the dock is Firefox Focus. I’ve really grown to love this app over the past year. It’s so fast when it comes to the all-important open-to-search capability (far faster than Google’s own app, which is silly — and why I booted that app from my homescreen). And I like the notion of not having every single search I do tied into profiling me. Especially when I’m often looking up info on a bunch of companies for research. Firefox itself is seeing a nice resurgence thanks to their “Quantum” browser — everyone loves a good comeback story.
Another new app on the homescreen is another Apple default — boring, I know. But I have to say, News is very well done. It’s extremely fast and I find the push notifications (which can be easily tailored) to be pretty useful.
Also new is Anchor, which is another GV investment, but honestly is a daily habit for me now. I love their News Rundown, which gives a solid summary of key news items a few times a day. I also have a few other channels which I’ve grown to love listening to on a daily basis. Not to promote too much, but there’s a lot more coming from this company in 2018, which will make the service even better, both from a consumption and creation perspective. Hopefully it will make its way onto more homescreens in 2018 :)
And Anchor continues my general trend of having more and more audio content at my fingertips. As you can see, that whole row — Audible, Podcasts, and Music — is audio-centric.²
The only other “new” app on the homescreen is hardly new: Uber. Yes, the company has been through the ringer this year, but it remains such a vital part of my life on a daily basis that I don’t know why I kept it on the second screen for so long. So now it’s right there, next to Maps (yes, Google Maps is still second screen, though I may move it back to the homescreen since at least they updated the app for iPhone X).
The only other app that is no longer on the homescreen that hasn’t been mentioned above is Ulysses. It’s still a great app for writing, but I’ve been experimenting with using iA Writer more and more, simply because its minimal style serves my needs (it’s currently on my second screen).
I will give special shout-outs to Bear and Medium, which both were on my homescreen last year, but I continue to use more and more. Medium, of course, launched their new Membership program. And Bear now has the ability to change app icon color with theme, which is awesome.
So that’s it. Some overall good changes, but sadly still mainly amongst the bigger companies’ apps (or the Apple defaults). Until next year…³
¹ And yes, I’ve tried several other iOS mail clients that others like. But in our post-Mailbox world, Mail still wins out for me.
² Yes, I’m still a boring defaults guy for Music and Podcasts…
³ And I’ll try to get up an updated iPad homescreen list in the next few days, like last year.
