Nik Fletcher

http://nikf.org/

Nik Fletcher works for independent Mac developer Realmac Software in sunny Brighton, England. Alongside working at Realmac, he’s been known to string sentences together for TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog), Download Squad and (on a couple of occasions)The Guardian newspaper. Not content with all that, he recently launched an iPhone app of his own - Happening - that brings nearby events from Yahoo’s Upcoming service to your favourite mobile device.

You can keep up with his exploits on Twitter, or via his blog.

It wasn’t until very recently that I actually changed the homescreen on my phone. I’m not one for homescreen clutter (even now I could fit all my apps, including the default Apple ones, into two screens) and don’t leave applications on “in case I need them”. There’s a fair amount of mental reasoning behind the placement of my apps - and even on the second and third-screens, I’ve typically placed the default apps (or apps similar to the default apps) in the locations they’d be found on the original homescreen. So, for example, whilst I use the default camera app on my lowly iPhone 3G, Hipstamatic is in the top right-hand corner of the second screen.

SMS, Camera, Maps, Phone, Mail, Safari and iPod I’ve grown so used to the arrangement of these apps (and, bizarrely, their colours on the homescreen) that I’ve barely moved them. Whilst the camera isn’t necessarily my favourite of the camera apps out there (I’m a completely sucker for Hipstamatic and keep Cinder around for uploading to Ember), the slower speed of the iPhone 3G combined with my need to snap something quickly means I have to fall back to the Apple app. I’m so used to the positions of the four original dock icons that, no matter where I placed them, they felt wrong anywhere other than docked and in the default order.

Ego This is an easy one: Ego’s style, simplicity and at-a-glance display of handy little stats has long justified its place on my homescreen. In fact, this one’s been on my homescreen since it launched.

Ramp Champ The Iconfactory’s iPhone apps are always so well designed (Frenzic, another favourite of mine, is on the second screen), and Ramp Champ has been on my homescreen since it launched. The style, the music, the beautifully designed items you can redeem your points for in-game: it’s all brilliant.

Facebook I may not spend a great deal of time using Facebook in general, but if I do it’s nearly always via the iPhone app. It’s always been a great native app - and allows me to avoid much of the hell-annoying nonsense found on the Facebook website whilst keeping in touch with friends.

Gowalla I’ve been using Gowalla and Foursquare for a fair while. At first, I was hooked on Foursquare, but the Foursquare app and Web site pales in comparison to the slick style of Gowalla - and with their recent update, Gowalla continues to be my favourite. It may lack the vanity-based gameplay that I’m a sucker for on Foursquare (which remains on my phone), but the slick design and fun gameplay continues to make Gowalla my favourite location service and I don’t see that changing.

Reeder I’ve used almost every RSS reader out there (NetNewsWire, Byline, Google Reader’s Web UI) and discovered Reeder a while back. The thing I love about Reeder is that whilst it uses a tonne of the standard iPhone controls, they’re styled so slickly that it’s a pleasure to browse and read articles. The ability to share via Google Reader (which many clients omit in favour of Twitter & Instapaper, which are also in Reeder) seals the deal for me. To boot, version 2.0 just hit the App Store and is another stellar update.

Birdfeed Much like RSS reader I’ve tried pretty much every Twitter client out there, and despite continually looking at what’s available I’ve always found myself coming back to Birdfeed. It’s a genuine shame it’s no longer available -  now Brizzly, it’s tied to the Brizzly service - as I loved the style, simplicity and the icon.

Jamie’s 20 Minute Meals There’s a tonne of big-name brands on the App Store, with celebrities launching apps - and most of them are mediocre at best. However the Jamie Oliver app is astounding. It oozes style, with lots of great recipes and a tonne of stunning photos to satisfy foodies everywhere. The app also has a tonne of videos, along with a handy shopping list feature that offers both menu-based listing as well as aisle-based listings.

Happening It’s probably unsurprising that a developer would have their own app on the homescreen, however Happening started as a personal project and an app that I wanted for my own use - it’s a location-aware client for Yahoo’s Upcoming service to help you find nearby events. I’m always running a cutting-edge build fresh out of Xcode - using the app on a daily basis to find out what’s going on in Brighton (and farther afield), whilst at the same time putting the previous evening’s work through its paces.

The Guardian Most of my reading is done via Reeder, however for non-tech related news I actually prefer The Guardian’s app. The customisable homescreen (complete with galleries of photos) makes it great to keep up to date on what’s going on outside the tech bubble. Combine that with the ability to favourite sections and full offline support, it’s a great little app.

The Others I’m forever toying with filling the bottom three spaces on my homescreen - however I find that keeping the bottom row as clear as possible makes the device seem far less cluttered. If I weren’t so pernickety about that space, it’d be filled with Instapaper, Tumblr and Articles (in that order).