On Tuesday, Apple is holding their California Streaming event, where they’re expected to announce new products, including the annual iPhone and Apple Watch releases, as well as rumored AirPods 3 and/or a new iPad mini. The other big announcement that will come during the event is the release date for their new software releases for the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. I decided that before iOS 15 officially hits, it would be a lot of fun to show you the iOS 14 Home Screen setup that I am currently using.
iOS 15 doesn’t radically change Home Screens during normal use (though Focus Mode home screens do open up some fun possibilities). Still, whenever a new OS hits, I do like to try and rethink my setup a bit. Sometimes the changes are minor, other times they are complete overhauls. I don’t know what this year will bring for home screens yet, but in the meantime, here’s what I see on the daily and some notes to accompany it. Please also keep in mind that this isn’t a What’s on My Iphone post, though if you’d like to see that, comment down below! With that in mind, I won’t be breaking down the contents of every folder, but I may highlight some key apps.
Today View
The today view seems like a great place to start, as it is actually a screen that I use more now than I ever did before. Back when widgets were locked to just this screen, I thought things got a bit too chaotic for my taste. Once Apple opened up the ability to take widgets from here and put them on the Home Screen, I rethought what I could use this page for. Ultimately it became a place to put the widgets I need most during the day, but that I don’t want to give up space from other items for. Thanks to the ability to create stacks, I’ve been able to turn this into a page that I really get to dive into throughout the day, but coming here doesn’t feel like a chore. For me, this was a fair tradeoff for less interactive widgets than previously lived here (though I do still hope Apple will allow widgets to get more interactive in the future).
Apollo (Subreddit Shortcuts)
I spend a decent amount of time on Reddit throughout the day and these are the subreddits I currently find myself checking most frequently, for better or worse. If there’s a community I find myself on more frequently than is currently on the widget, I have no problem swapping one out. The one subreddit that will probably never come off of here is r/apple, despite the fact that it’s the one that I feel most negatively impacts my health on a daily basis. Some days the people over there can be great, other days I feel they’re the people that hate Apple the most.
Blogging Stack
WordPress (Today View for That Jersey Gamer)
WordPress (Today View for My Tech Blog)
Toggl Track
This is the stack where I keep all of my blogging related things, save for my Share Post Shortcut, though I think I’ll revise that with iOS 15. At the moment, the stack simply serves as a way for me to check the views for the day on both this and my gaming blog. As for Toggl Track, I set that up earlier in the year with the best of intentions and haven’t used it once yet. I’m trying to get more serious about my blogging and one of the things I want to do is see how much time I’m currently spending working on it. Whatever the time is, I know it should be more. At some point I’m going to get better about this — I keep the widget there in the meantime as a constant reminder that I need to improve in that regard.
Misc. Stack
Battery Widget
Parcel
There’s nothing too crazy here, just a smaller version of the stock battery widget and a delivery tracking app for whenever I am expecting a package.
Shortcuts Stack
Shortcuts (My Essentials)
Shortcuts (App Store & Device)
This is another one of those widgets that I need to play around with a bit and decide exactly what shortcuts will go here. In a lot of ways, I’m limited by what Apple allows in terms of organizing your shortcuts. I’d very much like a shortcuts widget that is more like the Apollo subreddit shortcut widget, where you can pick whatever shortcuts you want to go there, instead of being limited to just a folder. I’d pay good money for this app if someone would make an app that would allow this to be possible.
Dark Noise
This is actually another one of those apps that I mostly got to assist with writing, but then it kind of fell by the wayside. Now it lives here so that I can remember to use it more often!
News Stack
Apple News (Movies)
Apple News (Technology)
Apple News (Video Games)
Reeder 5 (9to5Mac)
I do like to try and keep up on at least some news for certain topics throughout the day. That’s why I chose to put this stack just far enough away that I have to work to get to it, but not so far away that it feels like a slough to get to. Movies, technology, and video games are the big three topics that I like to stay abreast of, and 9to5Mac is a site that I got into the habit of checking several times a day, so when I finally updated to Reeder 5, I figured I may as well give it a space in this stack, since I’m going to look at it anyway.
Photos Stack
Photos
Wikipedia (Photo of the Day)
Apollo (Wallpaper Widget)
I was listening to a recent episode of Accidental Tech Podcast when a piece of advice was given: favorite your photos. With the exception of a three year period where I was on Android, I’ve used iPhones for most of my life. I can’t remember ever once favoriting a photo. I decided to put this widget here so that when I have time I can open it up and look at the featured photos or memories. If it takes me to photos, I’ll go through them, favorite the ones I really like, delete the ones I no longer need, and potentially try and make a note of metadata that needs to be fixed.
When I made the switch from Android back to iOS, I had a pretty big project a head of me: find every photo taken from the day I got my first Android phone to the day I bought an iPhone 11 and get those photos into Apple Photos. There were definitely some photos that had their dates messed up in the transition, so I tried my best to guess the year, set the date to Jan. 1st and then I’ll sort out the rest later when I’m at my Mac.
As for the other two widgets, they both have really cool images that come up sometimes. Wikipedia is mostly to gain a small piece of knowledge but the Apollo widget is going to play into some shortcuts I’ll be working on once iOS 15 is out.
Home Screen #1
My first actual Home Screen is more or less my Life Dashboard so to speak. It’s where I keep any apps or widgets that I feel are integral to running my life. Yes, I count social media in this category as communication with others is an important part of the human experience. 😺👍
Calendar 366 (Month View)
For the longest time after getting widgets with iOS 14, I kept a medium stack up here. I did go back and forth a few times on what widget to use for my calendar. The Up Next widget was fine, though I wanted something that would stand out a bit more. At one point I had Fantasical here, but I didn’t keep it around due to my desire to not have a subscription for a calendar app. I did eventually settle on Calendar 366 since it has a lot of the same functionality as Fantastical. To make the widget pop a bit, I decided to split it down the middle, permanently keeping the month view on the left with a small stack that I can switch through throughout the day on the right.
Daily Information Stack
Calendar(Up Next)
Reminders (Today List)
Weather
This stack basically contains the three basic tentpoles for successfully running your life.
- Knowing where you have to be (and when).
- Knowing what you have to do today.
- Knowing what you should wear when you go outside.
That’s all there really is to say about this. The truth is, we all need to know the weather, we all have appointments to be at, and we all have stuff we have to do (whether we want to or not!)
Health and Fitness Stack
Fitness (Activity)
MyNetDiary (Daily Progress)
WaterMinder (Hydration Progress)
Streaks (Dots)
Shortcuts (Sleep)
This stack is where I keep everything related to my health and well-being. Though I do keep an eye on my activity rings on my Apple Watch throughout the day, I do like easy access to that information on my phone as well. I’m trying to lose weight and stay hydrated so I decided that putting them in this stack would make getting in to log my calories and fluids as frictionless as possible. I’m someone who hates friction when it comes to getting things done, so if I have to hunt out the app to get to it, I’m less likely to stick to it. The final two items here are Streaks for habit tracking and a quick way to run Sleep in Shortcuts, which gets me to where I need to go to adjust my bed time (I’ve been sleep tracking lately ⌚🛌💤).
Folder: Social Media
Folder: Movies
Folder: Finances
Folder: Shopping
Reeder 5
LIFX
Drafts
Xbox Cloud Gaming (Web App)
I don’t really have much to say about these eight items, though I will absolutely be changing them when I redo my home screens with iOS 15 because I almost never use the Shopping folder. Likewise, LIFX is an app I open a lot less frequently than I thought I would. As it turns out, 95% of the time when I need to control my smart lights, I do it from either Control Center or the Home app on my Apple Watch.
I do also have a general problem when I use my phone in that I treat it like my computer. When I need to open a program on my Mac I press Option + Space to open Alfred and get to typing. If an app I need isn’t right there, I’m more likely to swipe down on the Home Screen and punch in a few letters of the name instead of even going to the App Library. With that in mind, I could easily pull LIFX from the Home Screen and still have easy access to it when needed.
Finally, that Xbox Cloud Gaming web app. Part of me wants to put it on an entertainment page, but more than likely it will be hidden in a Gaming focus mode when iOS 15 launches. Fortunately and unfortunately, you can’t store web apps in the App Library so I have to have it somewhere on a Home Screen in order to access it. It’s times like this I really wish Apple would just let them release the dang app on the App Store. 🎮🤓
Misc. Stack
Shortcuts (Work)
Shortcuts (Day Summary)
Day One (Daily Prompt)
Screen Time (Daily Activity)
The final stack that I have on this screen is a handful of miscellaneous things that I’d like or need access to during the day. The Work shortcut is one that I really enjoy. It has a list of items to choose from that let me start my shift (which switches around a bunch of device settings and then takes me to the app to clock in), access websites that I frequently need for work, and other things of that nature. I’m probably gong to play with this shortcut the week I’m off from work in November, though I feel like somehow there’s going to be a Work focus that comes into play. The Day Summary shortcut exists because I count that as journaling (and I’m really trying to journal more). I’m not great at being consistent with it, even with Streaks nagging me, but its still better than nothing. The Daily Prompt widget is there in case I see something that inspires me to write a journal entry. Finally, the Screen Time widget is there because would I really be a gamer if I didn’t try to beat my high score every week? 😉
Home Screen #2
Video Shortcuts
Book Stack
Kindle (Currently Reading)
DC Universe Infinite (Dive Back In)
Audible (Continue Listening)
This is a stack that I’m not positive on the size or contents of. I have a Kindle Paperwhite that I keep in airplane at all times so I don’t frequently find myself reading actual books on my phone too often. Likewise, while I do read comics on my phone a lot, the DC Universe Infinite widget is a lot better in the medium size, much like some of the music ones below.
Comixology
Highlighted
Panels
Marvel Unlimited
Highlighted and Panels are two apps I’m really happy to have on my phone for when I need them, but the truth is I use them way too infrequently to justify them having spots on a Home Screen. More than likely they are going to get App Library‘d in the next overhaul, though they’re both great apps that I would recommended if you need what they do.
Shortcuts (Kindle Daily Deals)
One of the things I love about my Kindle is that I can buy books on the cheap sometimes, so I like to keep an eye on the Daily Deals in case something comes up that I want to get but I’m not sure of. I do also have a shortcut for the Monthly Deals, though I removed that one from my Home Screen since I only run that a couple times a month. I can queue that up with Spotlight or Siri when I really need it.
The truth is that I haven’t been great about reading lately, which is weird because I do like reading. One thing I realized is that I don’t branch out and try new books, but I’m working on it one step at a time. 📚
Music Stack
Music (Recently Played)
Soor (Now Playing)
Longplay (Album Wall)
This is the stack that I think is going to get the most overhauling. I don’t know what I’m going to add here, but I think in the long run I want to take this back to being a medium stack, as I prefer the Longplay medium widget to the small. On my iPad I can’t wait to shove a large one somewhere because I think the album wall looks really nice overall. I also think the stock Music widget is better at a larger size since the smaller one only allows you to play the last thing you played. More often than not, if I want to play something I’d recently listened to, it will be a few items back. Soor is also probably going to get cut for now. I had it in a medium stack with playback controls, but I realized that was really redundant, as I have playback controls on both the Lock Screen and in the control center. Putting them in an arbitrary stack was excessive and created more friction than it removed.
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Dan Stransky 