Fun Friday: Your Mobile Home Screen

Comments (Archived):

1. testing to make sure this works

   1. calendar looms large along with unread emails. Good stuff all on other screens (not home page)

      1. you need to charge your phone 🙂

         1. this comment made me laugh

2. 1st homescreen http://t.co/RRtRiwTr

   1. sunny and warm in london!

3. Here is mine… Lots of photo stuff, an HP 12C calculator, Songza for music, and Waze for navigation

   1. songza! i’ve been using it a bit on our sonos. i assume you really like it.

      1. I like them for “background music”: 10 hours of work with Jazz, crowd pleasers for a dinner party, etc. They are good at marketing play lists with inviting copy.Their business model must be pretty good. I think they must able to cover all their play lists with “just” a few thousands of songs, compare that to Spotify’s millions.There is still a big market I think for a “covestor for music playlists”, it could be Songza, or it could be a clever app written on top of Spotify.

         1. i am not sold on spotify as a platformnot everyone uses spotifyi don’t for example

            1. Maybe Spotify could open a wholesaler model, serving songs to apps who do the end customer billing, also to non-Spotify subscribers.

4. I should clear my Quora notifications more often.

   1. 3:27AM…

   2. i really don’t like the way that iOS shows the unread notifications on the home screen. it would drive me nuts.

      1. Actually, I think iOS still gives you pretty good control over how to receive notifications.

5. Galaxy Nexus with Android AOKP/old geezers mod and beautiful widgets weather/clock.

   1. android widgets. one of the great things about android. i need to get more of them on my device.

6. friday the 13th – perhaps I’ll work from my bed today to minimize risk.This post makes me feel technologically challenged.5:57 AM !!!

7. High Line pic jumped out at me. So love that park.

   1. so do i

      1. I was talking to Paul Grieco, wine bar maven of Terroir fame, at this E. 12th Street spot and realized that I hadn’t tried the location on the High Line yet.Big fan of his wine list and fun approach to artisanal wines. Curious to see how it fits into the High Line.

8. Apps I could not do without – Notes, Audible, Path, Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock, ReederSpecial mention for apps that almost made it: Disqus Pro (to reply to blog comments),Gmail and Mail – These are on my 4th screen so I don’t keep checking my email!

   1. Is SleepCycle that good, i mean does it really improve your sleep? Also, i understood theat Sleep Time might be better.

   2. economist on the home screen! you are a serious young man. i like that.

      1. It’s a kick ass app. They’ve nailed the iPhone model in my opinion..

         1. interesting you say that. A friend of mine also swears by it on his iPad. Alas, I don’t have an iPhone of iPad to try it out. I am seriously considering the Nexus7 in place of the iPad – I hope economist has an android app

         2. I just downloaded sleep cycle – I will give it a try

            1. Cool. Lemme know how t goes, John!

   3. Brain Trainer and Sleep cycle, I will need to check those out

      1. trying both of those too

         1. Just down loaded sleep cycle #NeedAGoodnightsSleep

   4. Nice touch with the Stonehenge wp – relaxing.

9. SHIT! HELP!!!Mistakenly uploaded the homescreen of the iPhone 5 prototype I’ve been using.Tim Cook is gonna kill me!How do I delete it????

   1. Am already using my iPhone 6 … get upgraded please.Shall I ask Cook to send one to you ? he is a old-time pal and definitely will oblige my words :-)Have good fun filled friday.Edit: Yep that was a stupid joke and deserves the down votes … gimme more :-).

   2. They sent you a decoy model 🙂

   3. should I start lining up now to get it 🙂

   4. I believe a task force has been sent to your house for a raid

   5. 🙂

   6. Well, I don’t have the iPhone 5 prototype, but I do have something new and exciting on my phone as of a few minutes ago!!! So I re-did the photo! See the orange app icon toward the bottom right hand corner?

      1. I’m jaleous. Yours look nicer than mine 🙂

      2. Donna, umm, you’ve got mail … 😉

         1. So embarrassing. I explained my email in the comment with the first photo that I shared. But, still, no excuse.This the update photo — wanted to show off the newly added Engagio app.

            1. hehe – I’m totally just playing with you. I just read your other comment too – you’ve got a lot of accounts routing into that inbox!

   7. This just cracked me up! Thanks for making my day!

10. Usual stuff, one of the most useful is the Met Office, to tell me when it’s going to rain, ok so at the moment I don’t need it because the answer to that is all the time.That’s my son in the background in an aircraft.

    1. What’s Sky+?

       1. it’s an app that lets me set recordings on my satellite box remotely

          1. And super-convenient it is!

             1. yup really useful

          2. Doesn’t make my home screen, but the Foxtel app does the same for me. Being able to communicate with your STB remotely is capital ‘B’ brilliant.

             1. I don’t like the Murdoch empire but they know how to provide technology to the masses. I think it’s because to the average user it appears magical.

             2. Not a fan either, but there are no competitors at all.

             3. I missed that when we dropped DirecTV (last year after 17 years of abuse). FiOS app has it now too.

          3. that sounds fancy…:)

             1. it’s pretty cool, from my mobile to sky’s satellites to my satellite receiver, that is technology in action, it even impresses mrs f and she is largely unimpressed by tech.

    2. very meta. in an airplane with an airplane.

       1. captive market once he had spotted it in the in flight magazine.

    3. I was going to check out Met Office – looks like it may only work in the UK

       1. Yes john, super accurate but uk only unfortunately

11. Here’s mine. Tweetlogix (easily the best Twitter app for iPhone – yes, better than Tweetbot, and a million times better than the official app), Facebook and Facebook Pages because that’s my career (write about Twitter, manage FB campaigns for clients). Kindle app because reading on the go is a need, not a want. RunKeeper and Weather+ go hand-in-hand in the UK (alas). ShopShop is a shopping list app (trip to store beckons, hence number). The others are mostly the generic iPhone apps which I prefer over third party alternatives. That said my home screen changes every few weeks. Oh… and daughter in the background!

    1. so cute. how old is she?

       1. Thanks. Almost seven. Four in that picture, I believe!

          1. I find it so interesting how phones have turned into the new place to stick those important family pictures.

12. If I show you mine will you show me yours?My, I do believe, a long time ago, that would have been a real risque comment to make….

    1. show and tell my friend

    2. It is frightening to look back at the antics that were ‘acceptable’ in offices in the 80s and early 90s.I’ll take today’s values as evolution working to make a better culture.

    3. no issues … there are many long time ago guys here in AVC.

13. Besided the Apple apps, i have: iMailG (great push notifications), Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, Foursquare, LinkedIn. In the folders: Skype, FB Messenger, GPS NAV2, Soundhound, Evernote, Viber, WhatsApp, 1Password, Wikipedia, Quickoffice, Summly, Flipboard, Path, Instagram, IMDB, Quora, Minomonsters, Pinterest, MyPhone+, Rate Exchange, Convert Units, BC Reader, ProFM(local romanian radio).@fredwilson:disqus : This initiative is also nice: http://pinterest.com/thenex…. Maybe you could convince more people like Shervin or Sam Lessin to share their homescreens 🙂

    1. what’s 1password- you recommend it?

       1. A thousand times yes! It’s on every computer, phone and tablet I own.

          1. Thanks and to Vlad.

       2. You can use it to store account passwords, but i for one use it for my card PIN’s 🙂 But it’s cross platform if you want to try it out: https://agilebits.com/onepa…

       3. 1password is a password management app, similar to lastpass, but is only for the mac/iOS. i use it and swear by it!

          1. Their site is showing that it is now offered for Windows and Android, in case that’s of interest to anybody.

             1. o yes. you’re right @daleallyn:disqus. they started off as mac/ios, but branch out to other platforms a while ago. i forgot about that.

    2. seeing chrome on iOS warms my heart

       1. If i’m a chrome fan on pc, i couldn’t do otherwise on iOS 🙂

14. I’m surprised there is no music app on your home screen (except for SoundCloud). Which is your Go To music App?

    1. soundcloud

       1. Interesting that it’s not a native music app, yet it serves a music function.

          1. most of the sounds on soundcloud are music

             1. of course. how dumb of me.

15. Here is mine. Lots more folders than apps. Mine is organized my actions or tasks: Listening, Reading, Maps-GPS, Social, Videos, TV & Movies, Photos, Cameras, Documents, Dashboards, Utilities, App Store, Safari, Messages, Phone, Settings. In the nav bar: Productivity, Google Voice, Mail, Calendar.I’ve mirrored this setup on my iPad and on OSX.

    1. interesting that some gravitate to folders on their home screen and others don’t. i am in the latter camp. i am disorganized by design.

       1. Very interesting… clicks vs swipes.. there is probably some science there but i havent put it all together. i swipe to pages (sub folders) but on ipad am a heavy folder user…

       2. LOLed on the design part … some people don’t accept that and waste all their time on organizing themselves.

       3. I go back and fourth. Used to use a lot of folders, and now only use them to store apps pending removal (to make sure i dont need them). However, lately I’m finding I’m doing too much swiping and want to go back to some folders. If only iOS made it easier to search for apps.

16. Fred…weird that Android has still not the ability to make screenshots!

    1. mine does Ouriel, what phone are you on?

       1. Samsung Galaxy S2….not rooted…

          1. same as me, press the home key followed by the power key and then release

             1. what OS are you?

             2. gingerbread

    2. Some android phones can. My Samsung Charge does… While holding down the back button press home.

    3. On Samsung Galaxy S3 swiping the screen with your hand to the left to takes a screenshot..

    4. my nexus s does. – down volume + power.

       1. I tried that on my HTC android – didn’t work for me

17. My home screen is focused. Product, basic communication on the barhttp://i.imgur.com/3CqVf.jpgmy functional or most used screenhttp://i.imgur.com/UEO3a.jpgsocial apps, talkatone & gv connect because I want to commoditize wireless bits. camera, chrome browser (not 100% still relies on safari rendering), amazon cloud & other musc apps (Pandora!)

    1. Flashlight! I bet you were a boy scout Mark!

       1. No just paranoid and bad night vision.

          1. Great apps to have, I remember back in the day using a Samsung flip to navigate my way down a forested mountain trail near Seattle after picnicking up top for too long…would have been nice to have smartphone w/flashlight app then.

    2. talkatone is an alternate phone/dialer?

       1. yeah along with gv connect, and google voice it gives me phone access over wifi. Google and those attached apps have been cracking down on folks without a real phone line (I signed up with a temp sip # years ago and then dropped it), but so far so good.My setup is by no means reliable, but it’s good enough to convert messages to text and email me. And I have no problems calling out over wifi. Direct skype calls feel higher quality though.

          1. i use bria for that. very nice.

             1. I haven’t tried that, checking it out now.

             2. Bria is the best for quality and ease of use. Although on Galaxy phones you can instead just enter your onsip creds into the native phone app’s “internet phone” settings, right out of the box.

             3. no way! i am so doing that

             4. there’s a ton of voip providers I didn’t know which one to try out. Do you use your own sip network? Thought I remember a post where you do, checking gawk.it, ah here we go,http://gawk.it/search?forum…andhttp://www.avc.com/a_vc/201…What’s it cost per year to maintain?I see you used onsip to try 30days free back then, still using them?

             5. onsipi use it for several properties i own and i have ported a couple dozen phone numbers to it.i spend about $1000/year all in on it

             6. For OnSip, we pay about $900 per year with about 11 phones making active inbound/outbound (as opposed to unbilled internal) calls. We have 15 live phone lines across a very active services business with ~45 people located in Asia (Vietnam), San Francisco, and NYC. The cost figure also includes my entire personal and business call expenditure.Not bad for running a global, cloud-based PBX with extreme reliability.

             7. Makes you realize how big a ripoff big telco is

             8. one can also get this price down much lower if you use the excellent and robust open source “Asterisk” to roll your own PBX for free, and pay a simple “termination provider” to complete the calls.

             9. It warms my heart to see you use search in this way…this use-case is one of the two primary ones I had in mind for deciding to hack it together in the first place… 🙂

             10. I’d still be hash tagging things to kid’sfredland if I remembered the letters, oh I can gawk it! I wish I had more time and money, plenty of awesome finds in the avc network.

             11. Got it go go gawk it. Just searched fredland an Kid had a comment with #fs down the page

          2. do you have a full post on how to set this up – because you seriously have one of the most managed setups when it comes to voice I have ever seen.

             1. It’s not super current but here, http://www.victusspiritus.c…(Easter Egg: if you don’t like the color gradient changing via the desktop view of my blog you can left click anywhere, click again to re-enable it, customize to suit your style)

             2. that’s very useful Mark – I will check it out

    3. Why no service

       1. bought my phone without a plan, and just used wifi. kinda angry with wireless plans and their lack of competition, and over priced bit discrimination.I’d love a completely dynamic wireless market, buy the cheapest bits available with free market forces.

18. and a home screen from the Netherlands … the folders contain:fitness: Foodzy, Bikebrain, Runkeeper, Everytrail, Roadbike, Maps3D, Fitbit, and Heartrate.News: tech review, techcrunsch, BBC, Mashable, TUAW, DutchCowboys, AllthingsD, NU.nl, IEXSocial: Path, twitter, facebook, flipboard, getglue, pinterest, sonar, tweetdeck, linkedin, G+

    1. seeing wunderlist a bunch today. might need to check that one out

    2. I think your list is the most original so far +2

19. i talk about “home screen real estate” a bunch… getting there means you gotta be a great app and get used almost dailythe one folder is “productivity” and in it is Reminders, Plaintext and Cue

    1. brewsterrrrrrrrrrrrr

       1. hahahabeen on it for a year… took a while for it to get on the home screen, but it’s there

          1. i assume you have the launch build?

             1. yeah… had testflight build until yesterday

20. Engagio Mobile (it’s coming), Calculator, TuneIn Radio, Calendar.Photos, Camera, Viber, Skype.Weather, SMS, Notes, Maps.Foursquare, Twitter, Clock, Settings.Phone, Mail, Contacts, Safari.It’s weird that the iPhone doesn’t let you move out certain apps like calculator, weather, clock, etc…

    1. and your background/wallpaper photo?

       1. My wife and I….I haven’t changed it for 3 years since I got the iPhone.

          1. as JLM would say “well played”

          2. @wmoug:disqusHope you don’t have more than one iPhone :-)…btw, All those un read mails are because of engagio (i mean disqus replies) OR you also have email issue like Fred always complains.

             1. An email that’s not read or replied to in 24 hrs is typically ignored. But there are exceptions. I have an Android but haven’t figured a damn thing on it yet except the camera, browsing and email.

    2. Move out, what do you mean? You can put them in folders if that’s what you want.

       1. I meant moving them away from the home screen. If I put them in a folder, can I move the folder out of the home screen then?

          1. Yes, sure you can 😉

             1. Thanks.

    3. You need to read some of those email messages – just kidding

    4. is it coming for android too :)?

       1. Both. It’s an html5 mobile web app, not native.

21. Always: Phone, Email, SMS, Music (Spotify)Often: Browser, Weather, Map, Camera, FB, Alarm Clock, Time Waster (Dominion), Calendar, Work Email (Good, whose name is 100% ironic)Sometimes: Read (Instapaper, Flipboard, Sports Scores), Socialize (usual suspects), Photo (Instagram, Camera Flash, Snapspeed), Watch (HBO, Netflix, AVPlayer), Do (JotNot, Dropbox, Calc), Play (Scrabble, Words, Draw Something)Never: certain stock Apple apps (Weather, Videos, Stocks)

    1. lots of folders/groups. i haven’t been able to do that for my home screen

22. Did you say mobile ‘HOME’ screen or just mobile screen ? any how here is mine …Apps. Nothing.Sorry I don’t use any smart phone … just a phone which makes calls and sms … Nokia’s $25 …call me gadgetphobic or oldie …But I am sure no-one in AVC can have a phone more primitive than mine.

    1. old school. jackson would be so into this.

    2. A gem, both you and the phone 😉 I used to design and animate flash banners for nokia back in the days to promote their phones. good times.

       1. thanx for gemming my phone :-).

    3. “Sorry I don’t use any smart phone … just a phone which makes calls and sms”That was me up until about a year ago

       1. Everyone in the office pick me as an when they talk about “it is difficult to change some old (man) and habits” 🙂

    4. I have friends who prefer it, and one of the things I keep complaining about smartphones is that they really aren’t meant for going to a party between battery issues and size. Where does a lady hold all of her stuff?

       1. I would think a smartphone provides somewhat of a security blanket at a party. You can pretend to be occupied if you don’t have anyone to have a conversation with. You can set it to interrupt you if you want to get out a boring conversation.

          1. @LE you can do the same with all the old one’s as well … set the alarm and give the alarm your ring tone … I do that all the time in our MRM meeting (runs for 4-hours)

       2. @ShanaC:disqus to answer your question …handbag came to my mind and here is an interesting blog post i read more than a year back … searched that for you and giving you the link…. hope you find it interesting.http://rodinhood.com/women-…

    5. A close friend is a celebrity from London. After being inseperable for years from his Blackberry, and then iPhone, he had a social networking incident and removed himself from all services in a fit of rage.He dug out his 10-year-old Nokia (still works great) and is now only reachable by calls and SMS. Does anyone remember typing things out via T9??

       1. I still carry a Nokia back up phone/brick! The throw-it-50-storeys-and-it-will-still-work kindI know it’ll never fail me. T9 is suweet!

          1. and when it lands, load a game of snake.

          2. I had another model which my son broke 4-years back … although after 25-30 times throwing … worked like a baseball (softball) for him … soft outside and rugged inside (don’t call it a brick ).

       2. Couldn’t use T9 because it would be harder to text with my phone in my pocket in high school.priorities, I know…

       3. Ha … ha … a good reason for me not to change my phone :-).

    6. I have a $10 tracfone, it’s quite robust but only holds 30 text messages. I’m also so old school i don’t have a digital camera to take a pic, you’ll have to wait until tomorrow after I scan the negatives

       1. I asked my colleague to take that pic and then posted it 🙂

23. Oh man, I love this. I’ll be sorting through everyone’s apps all weekend! :)Background is “I’m Thankful For Today”… because I’m really flippin’ lucky to be working for a company that aligns with who I am. :)Shazam… Vsnap, which is the video messaging app I work for, although hilariously enough since I do so much testing on our test server, sometimes that spot is empty because I uninstall and reinstall… RunKeeper on the homescreen is for guilt, haha, and of course utility… Foursquare for checking in and search… Tweetcaster, yep, been through every Twitter app and so far this one hasn’t crapped out on me since I manage multiple accounts… Wunderlist is a to do list that syncs to an app on my MacBook so I can go back and forth (love it)… and Evernote because I crazily leave myself audio note reminders in the middle of the night, but also share an Evernote notebook with my team where I tag articles of “the week in tech” (competitors, insights, stats, etc).I love that Fred is an Android user. Love love love… 🙂

    1. is wunderlist the best to do app you have tried?

       1. It’s the only one with the best syncing so far. There have been a few kinks, but as a startupper, I’ve looked over them. On the whole, if I add tasks on my Mac app, then go out for the day… the app on my phone syncs pretty well. I like the reminders and the “this is overdue” prompts. Although, much like email, I have a ton of lists now. haha It’s better than all the random notes I’d leave myself in email, tasks on Gmail, drafts or on sticky notes on my computer. Can’t remember the last app I used.

          1. thanks

             1. No problem. Looking forward to a post on tasks. And then that future post on tablet screenshots. Haha

          2. I find that on android the syncing can be off. Like a few hours off.

             1. What are you running? Had trouble on my old Motorola DROID, but with my DROID Bionic it’s better.

       2. How about a post on task tracking and to do lists/apps?

          1. Agree. Would love to see a discussion on task apps.

       3. I’m a huge fan of wunderlist as well for proper lists, sometimes even to do lists. Having lists definitely is a great way to keep track of all the pieces of a project.In terms of to do versus done, I’m super tempted to move to idonethis as a system to make sure I actually check important things off my to do list. I’m finding things on old to do lists that I keep putting off (especially if it involves an errand of sorts). keeping track of what I have done, on the other hand, seems to make sure those sorts of tasks I avoid actually get done (because I see them getting done).

    2. Right on, making a short list as well.

24. Row 1 — Clock; Pocket Weather; Education[iProcrastinate, myRMIT], Calendar[Calvetica, iCal]Row 2 — Settings; Consume; Camera+; ContactsRow 3 — iTunes; Maps; Transport[PTV – Melbourne, TramTracker – Melbourne, Metlink – Melbourne, KICKMap – NYC, MTR Mobile – Hong Kong]; CalcbotRow 4 — Flashlight; News[Reeder, feedly, Currents, Hacker News]; Evernote; Social[Tweetbot, Pocket, foursquare; Google+; Tumblr; Tweetdeck]Home Row — Phone; Mail; Safari; Messages

    1. don’t you think flashlight should be built into the OS?

       1. Yes! It’s a shocking omission really.

       2. Flashlight is one of my most essential apps.

    2. I love the flashlight App. I use it all the time. Have you tried the strobe effect? Put the music on, turn the lights off and you’ve got a disco at home 🙂

       1. Ha!

25. I have the usual suspects (Email, Calendar, Phone, Messaging) as well as the most common social apps. A folder for various utilities (alarm, contacts, etc). Don’t really use the entertainment folder that much and should probably replace it with Instapaper.

    1. Whoops – photo didn’t make it in the first one. Didn’t realize I had to wait Disqus to upload it first.

       1. quora on the home screen!

          1. Yep! I have these “consumption” apps that I’ll just browse when I need a break. The list is Twitter, 4sq, and Quora. Instapaper used to be there but I haven’t been using it too much lately. I’m also not a music/video consumer so those don’t show up. Pictures are good though. Would be neat to see a histogram of these at the end of the day.The standard wallpaper too. I keep it simple.

26. I have essentially the factory home screen. Most of my apps are grouped on the next screen. The background is the Pacific around Carlsbad, California.

    1. gorgeous

       1. Wow. Digital art

27. This question was too cool not to answer.Appreciated seeing everyone else’s screens.

28. For me it’s:Gmail, Twitter, Tumblr, Pudding camera (still looking for the right Android camera)Foursquare, Gmaps, Web, DropboxSoundCloud, Calendar widget, bookmark to PinwheelExFM, AmazonMP3Default Android stuff (phone, contacts, SMS, apps)

    1. soundcloud on the home screen!!!!!

       1. Natch! How else am I going to capture those subway field recordings?

29. Setting up this Lumia 900. So far like it a lot.

30. The big ones for me are iSSH (super helpful for server admin on the go), quicklytics (super useful for keeping up on google analytics across my sites), Trello (super usefull for keeping my various projects organized and moving forward), and report to santa (super useful for keeping my kids in line)Disclosure: Report to santa is just a fun little app I built back in the Fall – http://santahelp.me if you want to check it out 🙂

    1. #geekpower

    2. I can’t comment on all the super useful stuffs you have there… but … you are the only one having movie related stuff on the front page so far i have seen….How many movies do you watch per month on an average…myself 1-movie/week in hall and 1 or 2 on TV.

       1. I’m a movie/tv junkie (always have been)…I don’t know the average number for a given week, but I can say it’s way above the norm. (prob. in the 10-15 a week range) as I generally have netflix, hulu, or amazon streaming throughout the day as I work (at home I have a second computer right next to my main working computer that is usually in full-screen video mode; when I go to the office, I generally use my phone and headphones to ‘watch’).

          1. wow man …I thought i am way above norm max 3-4/week … you are not way above the norm … you are chronic …when do you work then? … someone is nice to you paying for your 30hr/week movie watching :-).

             1. I use video as my ‘background noise’…so even though it’s almost always on, I’m not all that focused on it…in my tiny breaks between actions I’m performing, I’ll pay attention to a plot point or scene, but overall I’m not totally tuned in to what’s playing…Sometimes I’ll get into a bit of code and an entire movie will have gone through without me even noticing it was really playing at all…*sigh*

             2. ha… then you are not watching movie you are just listening…like listening to songs…I am off the grid. Have a great weekend.

31. Here’s my iPhone home screen:  http://bombtune.com/post/27…[Apologies can’t get the image uploader on Disqus via iPhone to work]As you can see it’s prioritized by my most used apps along with some other vital but less used ones.My most used apps (1+ opens/day) are Camera+, Instagram, Mobile RSS, Day One, Drafts, Tumblr, Tweetbot, Safari, and Mail.  I’m not counting Phone.  The rest are opened less frequently but must haves.  For example, Messages, Calendar, Weather, and Maps are critical when you need them.Facebook is on the home screen because it’s the social hub.  While I don’t venture in often I do like to check up now and again to see what’s going on with my mutual friends.The background for my screen is the basic default splash that comes with the iPhone.  I like this for its simplicity and don’t feel the need to change it to a personal photo for the same reason I keep my desktop computer background clean.This is of course, the home screen of my personal phone.  My business phone is a bit different.For one, Camera+ is missing, mainly because I never take photos with my work phone which is a iPhone 4.  My personal is an iPhone 4S.Home screen apps are about access, speed, and engagement.  If an app is not on the home screen, it’s a nice-to-have.

    1. Side note on iOS: photos can never be uploaded via Mobile Safari, this is not a Disqus-specific issue. This is because iOS does not allow file system-level access to files and directories. If you’d like to know more, check out http://apple.stackexchange….

       1. Thx for the clarification.

          1. From the old laptop #nofilter

32. ha!… this is like when someone is coming to your desk, you just feel the need to tidy up a bit ;)Usually a bit messier but I tend to just use a few apps the most.Other than the natives, Dropbox, Twitter, Foursquare and testFlight are what I am always going to. Instagram is also a fave but I never can get to put it on my first screen.As you can see from the counter, I have 9 screens worth of apps most of which areone time downloads cause I wanted to play with them. Apps am developing or helping to test, and some utilities, banks, etc.Btw: Disqus is having some major issues for me today.Won’t load at all in chrome. Ironically, it works perfectly on safari.The browse to image button will not work but the drag and drop did it in this case.

    1. Re: major issues with Disqus in Chrome, sorry about that. Does this persist after clearing your cache and cookies in Chrome? Here’s a handy guide: http://support.google.com/a…Should the issue persist kindly let our support team know at http://disqus.com/support — please include the version of Chrome you’re running — and we’d be happy to dig into this with you.

       1. I’ve been having too on Chrome Canary – just won’t load….

          1. How about on Chrome stable? We keep an eye on beta/dev releases so we can track compatibility as they become the stable releases but, well, it’s called Canary for a reason 😉

33. One of my favorite aspects of Android is the ability to personalize. And widgets!

    1. that’s what sold me on Android in the beginning

    2. Looking at these screen shots, all of the iOS stuff looks the same. All of the Android devices look different. iOS shots might have different icons on them, but aside from the changing icons they all look like the same layout. I much prefer Android for precisely this reason.

34. Galaxy Nexus running Jelly Bean

    1. Weather widget is Aix Weathertop left to bottom rightfolder 1: Play Music, Listen, Shazam (weirdly my Jelly Bean doesn’t have Google Sound Search), Youtube, Play Movies, TuneIn Radio (to listen french news radio from London)Google Folder: Drive, Translate, Earth, Goggles, Google Sky MapRead: Pocket, Google Reader, Play Books, Amazon KindleCameraMaps: Google Maps, Navigation (to find my way in scooter through London), Sygic (free GPS turn by turn if Navigation does not work)Messenging: WhatsApp, Google Text App, FB Messenger, Skype, Gtalk, G+ MessengerSocial: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, G+, Linkedin, TumblrPermanent row: Phone, People / Calendar / Gtasks, Gmail, Chrome

       1. I have Kindle too, surprised w/ all the avid readers on here there isn’t more of that. Mobile no good for old eyes? 😛

35. Reached over and took my iPhone off the charger. (Sleeping in while on vacation in old town Montreal – don’t judge me!)Looked at my home screen. <sigh> Not much to look at. I still have the damn compass on my home screen. I need an auto arrange by usage app.Cute picture of my kids, though! Always makes me smile.

36. My homescreen (SGS3) is all about widgets and folders:- Agenda widget- Multimedia: gmusic, Music Folder Player, SoundHound, Shazam- Maps (Google Maps, Yandex Maps)- Social (SocialScope, FourSquare, G+, uStream)- Photo (ProCapture, Camera for video, Paper Camera, Skitch, Gallery, PhotoEditor)- Chat (gTalk, Hangouts, Messages, Skype, Voice, Multifon)- Bottom: Dialer one, Gmail, Chrome

    1. Are you rooted to take screenshots or using the SDK method? If answering won’t incriminate 🙂

       1. Samsung gives you screenshots out of the box with no need for rooting – just hold HOME and press and hold POWER (although I’m rooted of course – for ClockSync etc 😉

          1. Ah, that’s nice – running Moto XPRT, no such luck.

37. Help! I’m having trouble getting my ‘smart’ phone to take a picture of itself. Fun Fridayeveryone.

    1. I am having the same problems. Is there a screen capture app out there for smart phones. If there isn’t, someone should make one. I am not sure how useful it will be but will be fun to have

       1. I use Jing for my pc. Very simple capture and does a nice job. Don’t know if it has a mobile app. Good luck.

38. All groups (other than Camera, Photos – Which has a group too – and Calendar):- Photos- Social (The usual)- Sports (MOEO, MLB, NBA)- Calendar- Newsstand- Utilities (Maps, Contacts, Settings, Dropbox, etc.)- Music- FinanceI do have a second screen … But that’s for another post.

39. My home screen is pretty geared toward much selfish consumption. Music > photos > games > navigation. With a sprinkling of pulse-tracking so I’m never more than a tap away from knowing what everyone I care about is up to.

40. 1st Row- Calendar, Maps, Notes, Camera2nd Row- Settings, Appstore, Music, Slingplayer3rd Row- Sincerely, Tumblr, Facebook, Runkeeper4th Row-Uber, American Airlines, Wells Fargo, ExpensifyBottom Tray- Phone, Messages, Chrome Browser, Mail

    1. american airlines!

       1. That is my airline of choice. What are you a United guy?

          1. yeah. and delta. and virgin. and british airways. and air france. basically i am not loyal to anyone

    2. how is expensify- do u rely on it 100%.

       1. I use expensify for basically one specific feature. I upload receipts to it and then attach them to the expense. For that it works great and makes it easy to keep clean records.

41. I used to have nothing but folders on the phone. It was my way of forcing myself to keep a limited number of apps on the phone.I recently added individual apps to the main home screen. I decided to use it for apps that I usually need/want to get to quickly (flashlight, calculator, soundhound, settings, the remotes, and IMDB – which may be the most used app on both my phone and my iPad 🙂 ), apps that I use very frequently (reeder, messages, phone, mlb/sports, chrome, bible), and a few that I use when I want to kill a few minutes (Quora, Flipboard, and G+).The folders on my dock are themed just like the rest of the folders on my phone. These are the four folders I dig into the most.

    1. +1 on the holy bible … first one i saw so far.And the color combo is very attractive probably because of the maroon color … my favorite.

       1. I meant to mention this, but I use a plain black image as my background. An image is visually distracting to me on a screen that small.

    2. I really like your use of folders in the bottom nav…never occurred to me to do that, but it makes a lot of sense.

       1. Glad you like it. I was very pleased when I discovered that.

          1. did not even know that you could! i am going to try this

             1. a lot of people are surprised when they see that 🙂

    3. Wow, great idea of most used apps on page one and folders on bottom. Love it.

42. Here we go again with a post that will keep me distracted for hours (perhaps days or weeks). Good thing you usually reserve this stuff for Fridays.

    1. i can’t recall who gave me the idea for fun fridays but i owe them bigtime

       1. I’ve spent the last five years taming my OCD, and you keep stoking it. 🙂 It’s a good thing my NADD will kick in and distract me. http://www.randsinrepose.co…

          1. OCD and ADD are a dangerous combination, even mild versions.But now to discover there is a name for this combination — NADD — ach!!! No wonder I don’t sleep. Even as a kid I dreaded bedtime for fear I might miss something. Needless to say I figured out Santa at an early age.

          2. rands rocks 🙂

       2. I’m going to give credit to RichardF on this idea since this is the first occurrence I can find to the topic (via gawk.it) was this comment:http://www.avc.com/a_vc/201……it seems to have evolved or merged into “Fun Friday” sometime after this comment from David Noel (a response to RichardF btw – so double credit to him!):http://www.avc.com/a_vc/201…

          1. …and just to follow up with more evidence that @RichardForster:disqus deserves the credit for this fun series -> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/201… 🙂

       3. I’ll be calling that in, in about 6-9 months 😉

          1. noted

             1. I’m kidding I am pleased i can make a contribution to avc

             2. i am not though

43. Not your typical iPhone home screen……and I didn’t realize the photo auto-uploads and you can’t hit send until it’s done.

    1. Here’s the image.

       1. what is hipchat?

          1. Very cool private team IM service. $2/mo per user. Just acquired by Atlassian. Learned about it from @yegg actually…he uses it at DDG.

          2. And I would LOVE to use the native Twitter client, if they would just let me pin one of my Twitter lists as my “home” stream.

          3. It’s a cross-organization IM. The General Assembly uses it among its members. I didn’t know they had a mobile App too. I don’t use it a lot though.

44. camera, photos, cal, camera+dropbox, simplenote, maps, calculatorreeder, videos, music, yelp4sq, twitter, imo, instagramlots of viop/messaging apps, sparrow mail, chrome, podcast

45. Keep it lean on the first page. Tons of folders on 2 and 3.

46. my phone is a battleground with my 3 year old. She moves stuff on it constantly. As of this morning this was what my HS looked like:i probably use twitter the most – it fills those 2-5 minute gaps in my day.

    1. ahhh – you’re killing us with cute ! 🙂

47. Did anyone else take a screenshot of your homescreen and then try to use it later?

48. too much hassle to take a picture now but here is what I have. Would be good to have a screen capture app :)Phone: HTC desire (android)1. Time/weather widget2. Kik3. Dropbox4. Opera browser5. Maps6. Twitter7. WiFi widget (turn it off/on)8. Bluetooth widget (turn it off/on)

    1. There’s a way to capture a screen on Android, but I can’t remember it. It’s too geeky.

       1. I believe certain versions of Android supports screenshots natively by pressing Down-Vol and Power together.

          1. gave it a shot but didn’t work. thanks for trying to help

       2. A few different ways are available on a few respective supported phones.But most Androids can be rooted, and then you just download the “screenshot” app.I guess Fred didn’t have this at his disposal for his photo!

          1. But “rooting” an android is not for the faint of heart or average user.

             1. Neither is visiting NYC, to the uninitiated, but actual survival rate and enhanced excitement is about the same.

             2. Ha!

          2. I agree with William – I don’t have the heart to root my android. It is not something I understand and it worries me too much

             1. Ever try Screen Grabber? It’s my screenshot capture app of choice. 🙂

             2. I tried it now but need a rooted device

49. Voyeuristic Friday!Usual suspects. GeeTasksPro is pretty good for managing Google Tasks. CooCoo is good for seeing on the run when the next metro north train is leaving Grand Central

    1. And a nice photo of my father on his 80th birthday with my daughter and 2 nephews.

50. Check it out:DuckDuckGoGetglueFoursquareTwitterAll on my phone!

51. My screen:Background: highlights from a powder day this past season.Notably used apps: MLB At Bat, Twitter for iOS & Instagram (although that’s on the decline).

    1. nothing quite like snow filled trees, soft snow under feet, and skis pointing downhill. can’t wait for next season.

       1. Word.

       2. There’s always skiing in Chile in mid-August :)http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…Highly recommended. Amazing off piste but few trees.

52. It’s interesting from the other posts who has kept the phone & internet buttons on the home bar.

53. To quickly take a screenshot on Android 4.0 press the power and the volume down buttons at the same time.Here is mine (note google reader and three different browsers in a row. Also a shortcut for messaging my wife)

54. Delicious breakfast food background and key apps.

    1. bacon egg and cheese on biscuits and fried potatoes?

       1. It’s nicely crisp homefries with bacon on a biscuit in the background. I’m not an egg fan, so it was hard finding a picture of breakfast without any!

          1. yum

       2. PS – I am going to check out Brewster soon too!

55. Here’s my iPhone 4 home screen. Photo is standing on the airstrip at Kern Valley, CA.Non-standard apps:Messaging: Trillian, What’s AppSocial: FB, Yelp, LinkedIn, Pinterest, 4SqTravel: Google Maps, Waze (I’ve stopped needing a GPS unit with the rental car), United, Uber (indispensable in SF, and yay they just came to SD), ForeFlight, TaxiMagic (for those cities without Uber), MarriottPhotos: Instagram, Instaframe, Camera+News & Reading: Economist, Kindle, Flipboard, The Guardian, Planet MoneyUtilities: Flashlight, EvernoteFood & Drink: FoodSpotting (love this app, though there’s room for improvement), Starbucks (I was given a bunch of gift cards so am gamely trying to use up the credit)Was a BB user for years… but the O/S just didn’t keep up. Tried a couple of Android smartphones but they were too heavy and battery life was too short. I use my phone constantly, mostly for work, and travel a fair amount.

    1. I noticed Foreflight! Are you a pilot?

56. Iphone– top apps including Twitter, Flipboard, FB, foursquare, exit strategy, cyclemeter and a bunch of photo apps that I use (645 pro being my favorite)

57. Here goes. I actually made kind of a radical experimental change today, replacing the phone app on my home bar w/ Brewster — I like the idea that I choose people first, then how I want to message them.Also, I recently removed email (sparrow in my case) from the home bar — I find myself spending too much time surfing the top of my inbox, which is unproductive and plain unhealthy. So I swapped it in with wunderlist, which I use all the time — if something is going to be on my trigger finger, I’d rather it by my own list of priorities (wunderlist) vs everyone else’s priorities for me (email).

    1. you are going all in on brewster. i like it.

58. Skype, google music, tube maps for NYC and London, google navigation for driving, tune-in radio, kindle.

59. I keep my alerts at low levels (almost always) and stay organized. Swipe to the right a few times, and you’ll see the chaos that is my phone.

60. Cool topic. Here’s mine.The usual suspects (Calendar, SMS, Photo, Camera, Maps, Contacts, Music, Safari, Clock)Folder for work (@listly) – Nezumi (Heroku client), TeuxDeux, ClickyTouch and Quicklytics for Analytics, Cardmunch, Asana, RemindersFolder for social (Twitter, FB, Boxcar, G+, LinkedIn)iRewardChart – Task/Rewards app to keep my kids in lineInstagram, Evernote, SkypeZite, Hootsuite as I always seem to be consuming news/tweetsAnd yes, I’m way behind on app updates…

61. here’s mine. I don’t play games or listen to that much music anymore. I’m an efficiency freak and don’t even like to click off the home screen. i only have 4 apps on the 2nd page and three of those are ones i just heard about and want to try this weekend. (Brewster is actually one of them).So I’ve got a few folders and only key apps. If I don’t use them, I don’t keep them. My nino’s games pop up on my account everyonce in a while and I play whackamole with them and delete asap. i like my inbox, desk and mobile clean and not cluttered – keeps me focused on the important.my company’s app that will move from private beta to invite only public beta is at the top left. the top 2 lines are std Apple that I use, then segmented by- reading sources – pulse, zite, fox news, wsj, realclearpolitics are the most read there – – general apps flashlight, shazam, uverse, course critic golf, caddiepro, google earth and calculator- productivity my bank app, weather (why in there i have no clue) reminders, cardmunch, social – FB, LI, Twitter, Pandora, Yelp, Ness ( love this one!) Tweetdeck, Waze (love this one too!)Business – Kayak, Salesforce, TestFlight (for our apple private beta) DropboxStuff – Hipmunk, flightaware, IMDB, plus some stuff i will test, learn and deletethe background rotates from family pics to golf course architecture pics I’ve taken. this one is the 11th at Los Angeles CC with the city skyline in the backgroundlooks like i should make a travel and consolidate it now that i look at that. FW, I hope Paris food was great!cool idea for a post. good to learn about other apps i’m not aware of, thus the reason I shared mine. thanks!

    1. ness? what is this? and why so many flight apps?

       1. Ness is a restaurant centric yelp type of all that i think is extremely well designed. a recent released moved to the FB kind of nav which sucks, but overall, as a foodie, i like this app and the look and feel. very clean. i travel a lot, both commercial and GA + travel apps are interesting to me as they take a lot of data and try to simplify, not an easy task so i like to learn from them. Hipmonk is doing some cool things there. FYI..TestFlight has nothing to do with flight. just a private app store to distribute your apps on, with a limit of 100 users apple imposes

62. I have two – I probably should do some reshuffling! As you can see, I’m a big fan of widgets. Email widgets, voicemail widgets, calendar widgets. I like seeing that there is something going on before having to go open the app.I actually wish there were more screens on my phone for this reason. Push notification doesn’t do it for me.

63. I have a thing about the home screen that I always need to leave at least one spot blank. One spot makes it feel less crowded, makes me think I’m in control, makes me remember that there are other things out there and that life isn’t overburdened with digital crap. (Like I said, think.)It also leaves me a spot or two to drag something I’m playing with and throw it on the home screen.

64. How bout “home screenS”: I have 3. Main (center 1 below) is most freq apps, right is utilities/music/travel, left is social/books/more utilities and travel. I’m proud of this collection, so ask away.I also have a 4th screen of rooted goodies, but some need to stay secret 😉 My phones are media demos, and I tend to root them as soon as I get them. This is a Galaxy Nexus rooted with Jelly Bean.Oh, the wife added her self-portrait when she borrowed the phone for what she claimed was a 4sq checkin.

65. Side Fun Friday project if @fredwilson doesn’t mind: My wife and I are visiting NYC and we are looking for some local advice. We will be up on Houston street today shopping etc. Any advice from local city dwellers?

    1. south of houston and north of kenmare, between lafayette and bowery is a fun area called nolita to stroll around and shop. go to parm and get a chicken or eggplant parm sandwich. then take a nap!https://foursquare.com/v/pa…here’s a foursquare list of art galleries downtown if you are into that (made by @dens) https://foursquare.com/dens…if you head a bit east of bowery, you’ll be in the lower east side. here’s a good foursquare list to stroll around that areahttps://foursquare.com/user…bottom line – foursquare lists rock!

       1. Perfect! Love the infusion of technology.. Does foursquare have the ability to share these lists directly to friends? If not I think it would be a good idea.Will definitely check it out. We are going to Katz deli today for lunch, maybe do Parm tomorrow!Thanks so much Fred. Have a great day!

          1. on android you just hit the share button on any list and you can send via sms, kik, gmail, twitter, etci dont know how it works on ios

       2. Wow, he has some serious taste in art.have you heard of any lists about brooklyn art, underground bronx art, or the standard stuff in soho?

          1. i am sure they have been madesearch on foursquare on the web snd click on the link that says lists on the results page

             1. I think you are excited about foursquare.

             2. you bet

       3. great lists!

    2. voted up since I’m visiting the US in a month and would like to see some answers :pon topic:My main screen has a calendar widget (calendarpad) and the date/time widgets The other screen has the apps, just some basic stuff since my phone’s an old-ish device and I don’t use much of its “smart” capabilities.

    3. How cool, Kyle! Enjoy! And you still found time to tweet me a link — which looks interesting BTW. Will read soon. Thanks.

    4. @awaldstein:disqus is a good person to ask too.

       1. Fred’s lists are a great guide.Of course the more specific the ask the more interesting the lists get.I”ve just emailed these lists to a friend who knows the hyper local food, restaurant, wine bar and wine shops in NYC better than anyone and asked her to build a bunch.

66. Fred, interesting fun friday post. Here is mine: in the tool bar, there is no surprise except SignEasy App, which I work for day in and out. 🙂 Some of the hidden ones in the folders are HotelTonight, Cleartrip, Kayak, Maps, Dropbox, Box and last one is TestFlight which again I live and breathe everyday due to the nature of my work.Btw, on your home screen, most of the non-pre-installed apps seem to be from your portfolio companies. I am sure you are a daily/active user of these and that’s why you chose invest in them in the first place.

    1. not sure what is cause and effect, but in any case, you are right!

67. Just got a new phone this week – Samsung Galaxy S3 – so this homescreen is a new one. Wallpaper is a picture of a house in Venice.The screenshot feature is awesome. Horizontal hand-swipe gesture across the screen and it takes a screenshot that lands in the gallery. Shared to Google Drive and uploaded here. Great UX.

    1. cool house. i need “advanced task killer” does that come with android or is it an app you download?

       1. It’s an app you download. The phone has a built-in function that is similar, but my impression is that it doesn’t do the job as well as ATK. In particular, I like ATK’s settings for automation based on frequency and “aggressiveness.”

          1. i use activity manager on osx all the time!

68. Here is mine….

69. my home screen!page 1 are apps that I use many times a day. page 2 are apps that I use once per day. page 3 are folders of apps that I use less frequentlyalso, the “audio” folder on page 1 includes: spotify, music, podcasts, songza, instacast, turntable, and ex.fmlinks:page 1 — http://cl.ly/463r3R282p442t… page 2 — http://cl.ly/2y3w3B431e1u33…

70. This is mine!

    1. old school!

       1. It was not that long ago that I remember reading stories about the competition between Palm and Rim and who uses which device. Unfortunately search isn’t advanced enough for me to easily pull up a reference (even with date restrictions).I did pull this up though, circa 1997:http://www.marketingcharts….@danielha:disqus a good feature would be the ability to drag an image instead of having to save and upload. (See you thought I would be satisfied that you fixed image upload but I’m never satisfied..)

          1. Heh. Indeed that’d be a nice feature.

71. Moto XPRT – most fun apps aren’t really on home screen, but these are the most used for sure (from top: Instagram, Vlingo Shortcut, WiFi, BT, Evernote Shorcut, G+, GReader, Kindle, Hootsuite, Browser, Gmail, FourSquare)Great idea for a Fun Friday post!

    1. Doh! Here we go.

72. I paid someone $100 to stand in line to get the original iphone which was 5 years ago (June 29, 2007) as I was leaving the next day for a cruise. I thought the iphone would get plenty of attention but I had no idea how much (I’ve mentioned this before..). Every single waiter and tons of guests on the trip stopped and fawned over it. I’m talking about people from all over the world.I snapped a picture of one couple which is representative of the marvel people had for this device as a result of all the hype and press.

    1. He/she must love you, could have bought and sold the phone for more!

73. I am having the meta issue of not being able to take a picture of my phone with my camera (which is my phone).

    1. there are a bunch of comments in this thread about how to screenshot your phone

74. @disqus – you need to add text to that picture upload icon.

    1. Inside the icon itself or as hover-over alt text? The latter is implemented currently: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/152…

       1. Next to the icon or inside of the icon. To easy to miss that icon. In order to get the hover over text you have to hover over it. I’ve been waiting for this feature and completely missed it until today (and only because I saw a bunch of people were uploading pix did I even think of it.)

          1. We actually only implemented it yesterday so you noticed it pretty much right away. We’ve yet blog about it and call it out more publicly; that’s coming soon. Thanks for the feedback, I’ll make sure the team sees it.

             1. I wrote about it 5 minutes of it coming. How about you guys give me some link love to my blog 🙂 since I wrote about it so fast.

       2. Ever thought of making the image icon a “+image” button again like in the classic Disqus?

75. Note I replaced Mail with Sparrow recently, and I am happy I did.Two photo apps that I often use in tandem. Ways to communicate with my family abroad (Skype, Kik), utilitarian stuff (tripit, teuxdeux, gcal, alarm), and reading stuff.

    1. How good is Sparrow?Heard so much good press but haven’t gotten around to trying it yet.. In my case, I’ll switch from gmail.. but still not sure what’s so special?

       1. I use gmail apps for all my professional email and regular gmail for my personal, and sparrow is clearly built to integrate perfectly with gmail. it synchs the folders, and you can star and archive stuff etc. All works quite smoothly. I definitely would recommend it. I even now use their desktop app, which helps me focus better than being in a browser with the temptation of other tabs. W

          1. Thanks Wesley. Helpful. 🙂

76. @discus – you probably should randomize your image links better to prevent slurping of your uploaded images.For example:http://mediacdn.disqus.com/…http://mediacdn.disqus.com/…http://mediacdn.disqus.com/…

    1. Slurping?

       1. Old lingo for what some search engines left in the server logs.Example:[13/Jul/2012:01:26:03 -0400] “GET / HTTP/1.1” 200 3928 “-” “Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Yahoo! Slurp/3.0; http://help.yahoo.com/help/…”In other words someone can setup a routine and grab all of the images consuming bandwidth, resources and maybe causing IP problems.No reason to allow it and my point is it’s fairly easy to block this by changing your naming convention for where images are stored.From mediacdn.disqus.com/uploads… tomediacdn.disqus.com/uploads…Now if you were watermarking the photos with “disqus.com” I would say (assuming no IP issues of course) good idea. Disqus.com would potentially show up anytime someone saw that image or if it was hotlinked somewhere else! (If you don’t choose to do this you might want to prevent hotlinking in your server config.)

    2. Thanks!

77. My home screen is organized as follows:Top row is for productivity: Love Podio.Second row is for keeping in touch: Skype is great on wifi.Third row is for research: Clearly, I need to adjust my LinkedIn notification settings! I use Pulse several times a day.Forth row is for eating out/buying stuff: Yep, gotta have the coffee wallet.And for the coveted Dock space:- Phone, Mail: a given- Trendr: the business networking app I’m developing- Clear: my favorite to-do list manager

    1. I go back and forth with having the LinkedIn app on my home page. Mostly use it on desktop. If you don’t mind me asking, what benefit do you find from having it on your home page — and the app in general?

       1. I keep telling myself that it’s there so I can perform quick profile searches or keep tabs on network updates, but that never happens, lol.. I use LinkedIn’s iPad app more often, and oddly enough, I use it more as a newsreader..

    2. Right on, what does Trender do?

       1. It’s a business networking app. I love professional networking, but I can never find the time. So I developed something that makes the time. At any given moment, we’re surrounded by opportunity and I’m just looking to give serendipity a little nudge. 😉

          1. Right on, we’re surrounded by opportunity. By makes “the time”, what do you mean?

             1. I can’t schedule my networking time days and weeks in advance, because when the event arrives, I have a million other competing priorities (and unfortunately, networking gets pushed down the list). So I use Trendr to carve out networking time when I’m free.

78. Hi Fred,Love sharing and discovering other peoples homescreens! Here’s mines.First Row: I use WeChat (or Weixin) daily to talk with my friends from China – a very popular app in China. Then the usual calender, settings and Safari2nd Row: Fahrenheit for weather with the degree as a badge. Instagram, Instacast and Instapaper for my favorite apps. Their on the 2nd row because they are easier to reach with your finger.3rd Row: Newsify for my rss, Launch (I know i need to update to Launch Pro), Photos and VSCO Cam: my go to camera app.4th Row: blank to keep my screen of clutter freeDock: Mail, Messages, Pulse and Twitter.

79. Made with multicon

    1. that’s a cool home screen you’ve got there

80. Here’s mine:https://dl.dropbox.com/u/66…I’ve come to really like the app grouping w/iOS – it’s helpful for all the social (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) and music (Sonos, Spotify, SomaFM, Daytrotter) I use. I still use the regular camera and photos app and email pictures directly to Flickr, or share them via Twitter or Facebook. I love Flixster for finding movie times and checking out previews. Sparrow is a superior email client usability wise, albeit a bit slow. Still hit Google Reader every day. Flipboard is my go to for news. Interested in Brewster – thanks for the tip yesterday!

    1. Looking at all of the posted screens, I’m surprised that so few people use the app grouping on their home screens.

81. amazing how so many don’t have the ‘phone app’ on their homescreen.we’re seeing the future. today

    1. I noticed that others have their contacts folder on their home screen. I use my phone and message apps for that.

    2. Maybe brewster needs a dialer. If it becomes the de-facto address book it could morph into Skype 2.0. That would be a nice business model.

       1. they don’t want to be the “hows” or the “whats”they want to be the “whos”

82. Ok, here’s my pretty basic iPhone home (a little OCD, can’t break it)…Some of my favorites living on the back screens: Twitter, Instagram, Waze, Scoutmob and Songza

83. Here is the John Revay ( iPhone 4)1. I cleaned up my phone home screen for this post, I have been using the phone for last 12 months +/- – just loading apps and letting them fall where ever they did ( not too organized on this front).2. I have been on a roll lately down loading and trying apps – mostly focused in the calendar and contact space.3. My 8 yr old son uses my phone while we are driving – he probably down loaded 15 +/- games4. I think I had 7 pages/screens of apps5. PS to Fred “someone suggested we share our home screens with each other”I may have been the “someone”… http://www.avc.com/a_vc/201…

    1. it was your idea John?if so, it was a really good one

84. Tiles for: My Family (quick call and status updates), Everyone Else, Messages, Personal and Work email, Weather, and Calendar. I scroll down for secondary tasks: stocks ticker, music, todo lists, maps

85. Pretty self explanatory. Navigation and bluetooth on my home screen are a product of living in Southern California where many of us drive a lot. A lot of email messages — I have six email accounts on my phone — some of these are dedicated to particular clients. I am getting some good organizing ideas from seeing the home screens here. I like the idea of adding more folders.I’m liking the Samsung Galaxy quite a bit — except for typing comments on AVC. I have to admit that there are still some things I occasionally miss about my BlackBerry.Ha, just noticed that I have Twitter twice. Fixing that.

86. Bonus – Home screen – my 14 year old daughters screen. She is more organized, and had has a minimalist way w/ her screenI think the photo is from a day trip we took to Misquamicut beach in Westerly RI earlier this year. We don’t get waves at the Fairfield beach#TakeYourDaughterToWorkDay

87. I had the google search widget on my home screen for a while but then found it just as easy to use the web app. Was that not the case for you?

    1. One less click

       1. Well if there is one person on the planet whose productivity I want to emulate, it’s yours. Interesting how one click makes a difference to someone who thinks like you. Maybe a post sometime on how you achieve the level of productivity that you do? The post on your disciplines was along these lines, but people like me need/want more specifics.

88. Great idea, Fred. I’m always curious to see how other people use their apps and set up their home screen’s.I have an iPhone 4 that is about a year old and the apps on my first screen are what I use most often, with the exception of the iBART app. My wife and I are planning a trip to San Francisco in a few weeks, so I’m trying to familiarize myself with the transportation options. The Google Search app is the best way I’ve found to access my Google Docs and modify them on my phone–easier than using Safari, for me anyway.I realized that I hardly use my phone as a “phone” anymore, so I moved the Phone app from the bottom row and replaced it with the apps that I use most often to communicate–Twitter, Messages and Mail.My favorite app that I downloaded recently is Listary. It works great as a to-do list an I like its simplicity as well.

89. Here is mine. Although I can’t give up Winamp, I’m not vey satisfied with the Android version.

90. Getting a new Android HTC or Galaxy tomorrow (any opinions on which model?) but as of today I’ve got: Memo Pad, Podio, Groove IP, Google Drive, Mobile Defense, Evernote, Google Talk, Hipchat and the handy Calculator.

    1. get samsung galaxy SIII (or SII or Skyrocket if you want a deal)

91. And here is my Home Screen since the image didn’t post with my comment.

92. (I apologize, I forgot the photo in my previous comment.)Great idea, Fred. I’m always curious to see how other people use their apps and set up their home screen’s.I have an iPhone 4 that is about a year old and the apps on my first screen are what I use most often, with the exception of the iBART app. My wife and I are planning a trip to San Francisco in a few weeks, so I’m trying to familiarize myself with the transportation options. The Google Search app is the best way I’ve found to access my Google Docs and modify them on my phone–easier than using Safari, for me anyway.I realized that I hardly use my phone as a “phone” anymore, so I moved the Phone app from the bottom row and replaced it with the apps that I use most often to communicate–Twitter, Messages and Mail.My favorite app that I downloaded recently is Listary. It works great as a to-do list an I like its simplicity as well.

93. Here’s mine – I only use 2 screens/pages. I figure if anything is going to be put on the 3rd, it’s probably not worth keeping anyway. I like to keep the home screen pretty clean. I keep phone, mail, calendar, and address book at the top (I replaced Mail with Sparrow, iCal with UpTo, and Address Book with Brewster). The bottom just has one folder for my main apps that I use – FB, Twitter, Foursquare, Instagram, and a couple others. My second screen is where it gets more complicated…

94. I try to keep it simple. Fun post, Fred.

    1. Trello!

       1. I love Trello so much!

95. Fred – do you blog from your phone? what app do you use? (i have a wordpress app and it’s not great.)

    1. Here’s my home screen. Pretty standard fare. I love my fantasy football (during the season) and my HBO Go app among others.

    2. I email the posts in from mobile using blog via email feature

       1. I need to figure that out and start doing it. It’s lame to have to wait to get to a computer to post when an idea hits when i’m using the phone for most everything else.

    3. If you ever use Tumblr, they just updated their iPhone app and it’s solid. I use it for http://noblepioneer.com fairly regularly.

       1. Thanks Tyler!

96. Much nicer since I deleted Facebook from it a few weeks ago 🙂

97. Am I the only one who keeps wanting to push the buttons on the photos to try to get them to open?Okay, I MUST get back to work. Friday is still a full work day for me!#toomuchfun!!!

98. Captio is set-up to email notes and images to my default Evernote notebook. It’s fast and that’s key. Clear is for grocery items & entertainment suggestions, anything more involved than that is a project for Asana. Digging Brewster so far.

    1. @jngsta:disqus do you use Asana for all other personal tasks? I like it, but seems really slow on mobile.

       1. It sure is super slow on mobile. I do use Asana for all other personal and work tasks, though, so it’s worth the wait on occasion. Ninety percent of the time I use Asana web.

99. The pic is really bad; taken with a Samsung so it’s crap of course:- but it shows my HTC Sensation that I’ve lived with for more than a year. I have G Drive, photo gallery, G cal, email, texts and contacts on top then comes twicca for twitter, Dolphin for browser as the native HTC sucks big, PGA tour app, Writer for “writing”, Instagram, Runkeeper and Zimly for music and videos; not Soundcloud as I’m not fond of stuff I’ve not been recommended… suspicious?But I use two more pages full of stuff and I can’t say that my home page is really consistant..

100. Fun thread. Here’s my home screen.- Lots of standard iOS apps. They’re beautiful utilities and I use them very often.- My most used “social” app is Twitter so it stands alone. The others I keep in a folder, though I’ve been using foursquare more and more lately.- I’m a huge fan of Rdio and I open it up every time I’m off walking somewhere.- Alien Blue is a 3rd party client for reddit. It’s my goto time filler.- I replaced the Apple mail client with Gmail for consistency across the devices I use.

     1. Daniel, if you like the Gmail app, you’ll LOVE Sparrow.It’s what Google wanted to build.

        1. I have Sparrow as well and use it sometimes. I’ll give it another shot soon, but I’m getting reliant on the gmail ux and not needing to worry about any oddities with imap.

           1. I use Sparrow on my Mac too. Haven’t had any issues with either app and it feels like all the best parts of native Gmail to me (and none of the drawbacks).

101. I’m gonna’ have to call you “Inspector Gadget” from now on!

     1. that would make my day

102. Screens one and two. Use them both equally as much. My current context dictates which screen i default.

103. I read AVC every day but never have dropped a post, figured this was a good/simple way to start.Like others on the comments, I put apps that I use at least once a day on the home screen. I use Facebook most often (I’d guess I open that app 15-20 times/day), Dropbox and Shazam are a tie for second (I drive often and like to keep the radio on, Shazaming everything my ear likes and then buying on iTunes). Foursquare has quickly become my new addiction.Screens 2 & 3 are all folders of apps; such as Finance, Writing, Film, Shopping, Travel, News, etc etcThe background is a pic of my grandfather gambling in the late 70’s, Gin Rummy was his game 🙂

     1. i should put a grandparent on my phone. well played. and welcome to the comments!

        1. Always cool to memorialize someone/thing that inspires you. Though if he were alive I’m sure the concept of a smartphone would blow his mind

        2. And thanks for the welcome!

           1. A tradition. I’m not 100% with it but I do like to welcome first time commenters

104. here’s mine: pretty boring except for the bike wallpaper – which reminds me when i’m sick of tech I can go get my hands dirty with the bike project in the garage ..and maybe actually ride it again someday 😉

     1. Looks nice, Andy – good luck with the project! I used to have a very early R80GS – one of the best ‘bikes I have ever ridden – and the steed for my fastest-ever TT lap on ‘Mad Sunday’ – pic is from a loooong time ago, lol 😉

        1. 🙂 I should clarify – the bike in the pic isn’t mine. mine is a much uglier beast – an 86 honda xl 600 r.but I drool over the older R80 and R100 models 🙂

        2. BTW – thats a sweet old skool pic Carl 🙂

105. Only a few key unique ones.Top row – Directv Super Fan. I am lazy, but during football on Sunday this is a frequently used link.Google Maps home navigation shortcutIFTTT – this is a heavily used one. Anytime someone wants to set up a meeting I click on this select message and then put the meeting details. The text message automatically adds it to Google Calendar. FTW.Middle Row – Google Voice. Been using since it was Grand Central. Love it.Bottow Row – Waze. The hands down best navigation and police speed trap tool on the planet. Gotta have it.

106. What is with the new twitter bird flying straight up into the sky?

     1. I thought the same – to me, it looks like the farmer has shot it!

107. If any one cares about what’s on my 11th screen:Thrillist, Draw Free, Shelby.Tv, Tweetbot. My Life, Cor.kz, Pinterest, Echoer.AlJazeera, Klout, Spreaker, Beirutna. DDG, Google Search, FB Pages, Alien Blue.

108. Top right corner is yours Fred!

     1. That’s awesome. A web bookmark to avc?

        1. yup

109. I like it clean. Plus running some forthcoming new widgets and live wallpaper. 🙂

110. “in the process of switching to a Galaxy Nexus running Jelly Bean”: I would happily have done it for you in 15 minutes while you waited.That Galaxy S ii pictured is a great phone too. Can easily have at least ICS w/ Chrome today. Mine has for months now. Ask me, next time.

111. I’m so glad you asked this question because I just looked at my iphone home screen and realized that I have a few of the original defaults still on the home screen even though I hardly ever use them (e.g. Weather, Music and iTunes!) For some reason it feels strange to move them!! But It is time for a review and shuffle! Thanks!Other than those, I have the Clock (daily alarm clock and parking meter reminder), Calendar, NPR News, Messages (text kids), Camera (taking kids pics), Photos (mailing to grandparents), Maps (I drive everywhere), Contacts, Find my iPhone (My kids share the same account and I check to see how close they are to getting off the school bus), On the dock: Phone, Mail, Safari, Notes (for tidbits, reminders, to dos)I love my iPhone, true multi-purpose device! Now my iPad on the other hand …. has a whole other set of apps …

112. I moved as much as I could off my home screen a while ago.Waking up to an empty screen is a great way to start the day, and requiring a positive action (swipe right) to get to apps gives me a moment for pause, to ask myself “do I really need (to be distracted by) XXXX now?”PS: That’s the beach at North Cottesloe, Perth, Western Australia

     1. Nice idea. May try that.Lovely spot, that pic. Spent a lot of time in WA; had/have some family in Freo and Mundaring areas and used there as a base – I got as far north as Monkey Mia and did Ayers etc with a friend’s old Oshkosh, delivering to the aboriginal colonies – I didn’t wash for 3 weeks and slept on a pallet on the trailer – loved it. The Flying Doctor coming to get me in the middle of the desert added to the whole experience, lol, But, as they say, that’s another story… 😉

113. I’m a noob when it comes to smartphones. I just got mine recently and I’m still discovering apps. This is a great post from @fredwilson:disqus. Kudos also to @JohnRevay:disqus for suggesting this.I mostly have games on the topmost row. Then there’s an Aldiko eBook reader, Google Drive, Dropbox, Polaris Office, and Documents To Go for work-related stuff. Then Facebook and Google+ for social networking, browser, Merriam-Webster’s dictionary app for reference, and the MMDA app to help me navigate through metropolitan Manila traffic. The screen capture doesn’t show it but the phone, messaging, and some other functions are in the mini-app bar along with the software keys and notifications.

     1. Here we go. The image wasn’t able to upload properly.

        1. Looks like you are a gamer

           1. Yeah, I’m a bit of a gamer. But like you pointed out in a previous comment, kids nowadays download/ play so many games on smartphones. And like what others have said before on this thread, it’s like a test of willpower not to cram so much stuff on your home screen and phone. There are so many apps out there as well as games, it forces you to prioritize which ones to use.

114. Hey Fred, I find the home screen to be very personal and interesting. There is a website where you can upload your screens. You can see mine at http://www.vanityscreen.com… . Each home screen is tagged to your twitter handle so you have a vanity URL to send around. Folks can upload theirs at http://www.vanityscreen.com/

115. I tried to use Sparrow instead of Mail, but it still isn’t there.

116. Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I like to keep my home screen simple. Important notifications appear at the top and other stuff is only a swipe away.

     1. The discussion also inspired me to create this most-popular-apps infographic. http://plinqs.com/rob/topap…I tried to be platform-agnostic where possible but to match the graphic went with Apple if I had to.

117. I missed this post but had to reply cause I am big fan of android and the level of customization it can bring about. I love the freedom of having widgets in android and that with custom launchers you can increase the rows and columns. I have started using colornotes a lot – you can see it as a postit on the top right hand corner and a picture frame widget in the left top corner. The rest are pretty generic but another great feature is that I can put a custom quick dial with pictures on the home screen and the calendar widget below it.

118. nice pic. i had no idea you could drag and drop to disqus comment box. sweeeet