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John Siracusa

April 6, 2011

I don't have an iPhone, but I've been a big fan of the iPod touch since the first version. We have several around the house, but I'm currently using a second-generation iPod touch with the latest OS that it'll run: 4.2.1. It doesn't support multitasking, and for whatever reason, it didn't install a wallpaper image when I updated to iOS 4. Even if it had, I would have changed it back to black. I find most backgrounds distracting.

Maybe if I had an iPhone, I'd be more motivated to tune my home screen for efficiency. But as you can see, more than half of the icons haven't changed since the day this iPod came out of the box. I don't think I've touched the bottom four stationary icons at all. I know you're supposed to put the applications that you want to be able to reach immediately down there, but I just find it awkward to move my thumb to hit any of the icons in that row.

The most comfortable position for my left thumb to hit is occupied by my most frequently launched applications, starting with Twitterrific. It is by far my favorite Twitter client. I've tried and purchased many other Twitter clients, but Twitterrific was my first love, and I've always come back to it.

Next to it is the game I play most frequently, Words with Friends. It's buggy, it occasionally crashes, and its servers are slow, but it's still leaps and bounds better than the official Scrabble app, with which I've never managed to actually complete a single game. (Each time I tried, my game in progress disappeared without warning and never came back.)

Instapaper also has a permanent home in my thumb's favorite row. I bounce back and forth between it and Safari to do my web browsing. Safari is in the upper left-hand corner because that's where I thought I should put the application I'm going to use most frequently. In reality, I spend more time in Twitterrific and Instapaper than Safari, but "upper left" has come to mean "Safari" to me. It's the only icon on my home screen that I don't think I'll ever move. I use the Gmail and Google Reader web interfaces rather than a native mail app and newsreader. With little memory and no multitasking on my iPod, having those two tasks within a single application makes muddling through the web UIs worthwhile.

My two most frequently used e-book readers are on the bottom row, though I have several more on another screen. I used to work for the company that created the eReader app, and it's still my favorite e-book reading application. But these days, I find most of the content I want to read at Amazon. The Kindle reader is simplistic and inflexible, but it gets the job done.

Whatever game I happen to be playing at the moment gets the spot to the left of Instapaper. Right now, it's Tiny Wings, which is a perfect example of the type of game I like to put there: relaxing, and fun in short bursts.

I never launch Calendar, Contacts, Maps, or Calculator. I do use the Mail app to check one or two special email accounts. I occasionally use Notes to jot down some idea that pops into my head as I drift off to sleep. When I wake up, I sometimes check the weather with the AccuWeather app. I've got photos of my wife and kids in the Photos app, a few random TV shows and movies under Videos, and about 20 GB of tracks under Music. I very rarely buy anything from the iTunes Store, and I don't think I've ever used my iPod to make a purchase.

So there you have it, a monument to inefficiency and wasted space. But sadly, I've gotten so used to my home screen looking like this that any time I try to move a new icon onto the page, I find the new look of the screen off-putting. This is especially true for apps with ugly icons. It took me a long time to accept the Words with Friends icon, for example. I spent months with it on one of my other screens, but eventually just could not stand constantly swiping over to launch it. (The new AccuWeather icon is pretty darned ugly too.) I suspect icon aesthetics have an undue influence on many iOS users' home screen arrangements—more than most people are willing to admit. I'm glad you didn't ask to see all my other screens, some of which may or may not be arranged by color…