I'm a self-admitted Apple hardware junkie and long time iPhone sporter (Disclaimer: I am also an Apple stock holder, which was cooler two years ago than it is now). That said, I installed the beta version of iOS7 a few months ago and was able to clean up my apps. I also feel like a person's home screen says something about them, so with that in mind, welcome to the first installment of: I'll show you mine if you show me yours...
- Background: A picture of an empty Memorial Stadium (home of Cal Football), during the first spring practice of the Sonny Dykes era. My dad and I snuck onto the field for an hour until security realized we couldn't run, jump, catch or throw very well.
- Google (Search): Most of the time I use the Google App for it's voice recognition capabilities. Siri is a certified disaster on iOS7, so if I want to be relatively hands free, I go Google.
- Weather (Weather): I use the default weather app that is run by Yahoo. Ideally, I'd like to remove this from my home screen to make space for something else but there is no quick or native shortcut to weather other than Siri.
- Mint.com (Finance): Mint's been on my homescreen forever. Now that they are owned by Intuit, they have clearly stopped innovating and the app is "ok" at best. You can't see transactions by month which drives me nuts! I am pretty much tied in to Mint because of the historical data that I've catalogued but am losing interest with the service.
- Asana (Product/Life Management): I have a love/hate relationship with Asana. I use it to keep everything in my life organized. I love the desktop product but think the app is sub-par. I'd love for it to cache its data so users can read data before WiFi kicks in & they should incorporate the swiping hand gestures most apps to move between screens (See: Facebook).
- Circa (News): Circa takes the day's top stories and breaks them down into a few sentences. It's a great way to skim through the important stuff and gives just enough info for you to know something about what is going on in the world. I'd love for them to come out with a local tab.
- iBooks (Reading): I should read more but end up fiddling with the next two apps.
- Candy Crush (Game): First off, don't judge me! This is the space that I reserve for whatever game I'm playing at the moment. They rotate. First, it was Angry Birds. Then it was Plants vs Zombies, followed by Bejeweled. Bejeweled didn't work on iOS7 for a long time, so eventually I went to the next closest thing. I ride SF Muni to work, and this passes the time.
- ScoreCenter(Sports): As much as I think it could be improved (@Andrew Machado - you got this bud!), this is still the best universal app for scores, sports news and to see how freaking awful the Giants are this year....ugh! God they got so old so quick!
- Nike+ Running(Athletics): Ever since back surgery, I've gotten really into running. I try to run 500 miles every year and the Nike+ is with me every step of the way. It's the best example of an app that "gameifies" users performance data. Amazing UI/UX!
- Calm (White Noise): I swear this isn't on my phone because I am about to go postal. Calm is a great app for white noise. When I'm at work, I use this to tune out loud talkers. As a notorious loud talker, I reccomend you get this too!
- Lift (Goal Tracking): In addition to my running goal, I'm also trying to do 5000 pushups and 500 minutes of the plank this year. I'm pretty far behind but I use Lift to help track my goal data.
- MyFitnessPal(Health): I guess you can say I'm a personal tracking enthusiast. I feel like it's motivating to see your progress over time (or vise versa) when you're working on a long term goal. I take the data stuff seriously. I use MyFitnessPal to catalogue my weight and what I'm eating (sometimes).
- Rdio(Streaming Music): Maybe my favorite app. Rdio saves me a ton of money on music and is much more user-friendly than Spotify (IMO). They recently improved their 'Rdio Stations', which allowed me to remove Pandora from my home screen.
- Podcasts(Streaming Talk): This is mostly used to stay up to date with sports talk radio. I listen to Damon Bruce & PTI regularly. When I'm on a longer trip, I'll dip into some NPR for fun. Maybe the Apple app I enjoy the most, because they don't charge you for each podcast.
- Shazam (Music Recognition): Always a staple of the homescreen. There's no point to having this app if you're going to have to search for it. If Shazaam isn't on your home screen, the song will be over and you will have missed the moment.
- Band of the Day (Music): The app is what it sounds like, but it's also has the best user-experience of anything I've seen. These guys get design. It's really a beautiful experience and a great way to find a new band while on the bus.
- Twitter (Media Consumption): I'm sorry but, unless you're a 13 year old girl, Twitter is way more about getting real-time updates from news outlets than it is a way to stay up to date with your friends and family. This is how I read the news as it's happening.
- Instagram (Social Imaging): Instagram has quickly become the social network that I enjoy using the most. The pictures are easy to consume. I don't get slammed with ads for other apps. I get a currated list of only the people I care about. In other words, it's exactly what Facebook used to be for consumers before they... you know... became a business.
- Facebook (Social Communication): I am really starting to dislike my newsfeed and am trying to only open my Facebook app when the little red light goes on. The time I enjoy this is when it's replacing my email inbox. Too many ads but too integrated into communication to remove. I hope my friends who now work at Facebook fight hard to keep the consumer in mind and don't let it become the next Yahoo (circa 2010).
- Safari (Web-browser): Not much to say about the web-browser other than I don't have it on my dock (which is reserved for communication tools). I will say that the iOS7 browser is 100x better than iOS6. The tabs and unibar are much cleaner. It's nice that Apple got out of the way to let the webpages be the app here.