Karl von Randow

http://xk72.com/blog/

Karl von Randow is the author of Birdbrain and Mobile Fotos for iPhone, and Charles Proxy for the desktop. A Java developer by day, he expects the removal of the Cocoa-Java bridge will turn out to be a temporary oversight.

The first row on my home screen is organized by how I start my day. First, I catch up on overnight Twitter – at GMT+13 a lot of things happen while you’re asleep – that puts Tweetie in the number one spot. Next, I update my friendly WeightBot or read my feeds with Byline, not necessarily in that order. I tried several feed reading apps and Byline ended up my favourite. Finally I check my Calendar, and then I’m ready to go.

The second row is apps I use during the day. Remote to control my Apple TV; still one of the best things about the iPhone. Things to keep track of my todos. Stocks for checking the all-important-for-foreign-iPhone-developers USD exchange rate. If you didn’t know, you can enter NZDUSD=X as a stock ID (substitute NZD with your own currency).

The third row is blatantly dominated by my own apps. As a convenience when developing, and because I run them all the time, you understand. Mobile Fotos is a Flickr uploader and browser. Birdbrain tracks your Twitter followers and other stats. Hallokitty is a joke app that I like to have at the ready seeing it is coming up to Halloween.

The final row completes what is accidentally an entirely Apple final row and column combo. It was quite a challenge not including the App Store and Settings, but they’re numbers one and two on the second page. Not seeing an update badge on the App Store keeps my productivity up, and who’s in Settings these days anyway?

I admire people who can drastically change their dock. I’ve simply replaced iPod with Messages, bumping Phone out of the left-most spot. I’m tempted now to move Phone off the home screen entirely, just to see what would happen. On the suggestion of my friend and colleague, Matthew Buchanan, I now have double-click to launch the iPod so it isn’t on my home screen at all. I actually don’t use my iPhone as an iPod very often, as I’m trying to eek the last of the value out of my 1st gen nano, so this may change back to launching Favorites (sic).

Overall, I was surprised by how hard I found it to move Apple icons off the home screen (and even harder to move them past page two), but once you start you can’t stop.