This week’s home screen features Stephen Grassie. Stephen pays for his shoes helping attorneys with courtroom technology but he also played a hand in the Brain Fuel Cookbook (made with iBooks Author) about eating better. So Stephen, show us your home screen.

What are some of your favorite apps?

I find that the apps I value the most are the ones that make my life easier. I can’t decide if that makes me smart or just lazy!

Pinbox is one of those simple apps that does one thing so well it feels frictionless. I enjoy researching plans before a trip, but I don’t like deciding on a specific itinerary of when to do things once I arrive. Pinbox lets me skip the itinerary by creating a custom map with as many location marker pins as I want—I just drop a pin on my hotel and then on any other location I might want to visit. At any point during the trip, I can open Pinbox and see a map of places I’ve saved compared to my location and decide what to do next. The app is quick and intuitive, but I hope the developer will add a few features like iPad optimization and map sharing.

Chronicle reminds me of upcoming bills in the era of paperless billing. Using it is so quick that I don’t find myself putting off adding new bills or updating balances. When a due date approaches, the app uses the standard red notification badge as well as notifications to make sure I don’t forget anything. (It also has a great Mac companion app if you prefer paying bills on your Mac.)

Paprika makes the process of cooking at home much easier. I really wasn’t much of a cook when I began working on the iBooks version of Sam Anderson’s cookbook, and I found myself struggling with the process of deciding what to cook and then figuring out what ingredients I needed. Even worse, when I forgot to plan a meal or to buy an ingredient, I’d end up wasting a lot of time going to the store again. Luckily, after adding my favorite recipes to Paprika, the process of deciding what to cook for the week and what ingredients to buy became so quick that I now often do it while sitting in the parking lot at the grocery store right before I walk in. It even exports your grocery list to the built in Reminders list.

Squarespace’s Blog app was a bonus I wasn’t expecting when I signed up. The app itself is unabashedly simple without being limiting.

Idea Bucket has a confusing name—it’s more like a pro/con list on steroids. When I am having a hard time making a decision, I’ll add the options to Idea Bucket and then add a few pros and cons to each. The app is different because it uses weighted slider bars rather than a standard list. Once I’ve gone through the process of entering the data, I can usually tell right away which option makes the most sense. I don’t use this app daily, but when I do use it I’m glad I have it.

iCam lets me use standard webcams as home security cameras and lets me check the cameras and recorded motion events from anywhere. I use it to check on the dog and see if I closed the garage door. It can even send you a push notification if it detects motion.

SimpliSafe is a modern DIY home alarm system. Shortly after installing it, we were on a cruise and couldn’t remember if we’d set the alarm. I pulled out my phone and armed it from the middle of the Caribbean and felt pretty darn cool. We even have a sensor in our mailbox that sends a push notification when the mail is delivered.

iBooks, of course! I greeted iBooks with great skepticism when it launched because I just couldn’t see myself reading full-length books on my iPad. Luckily I stumbled upon Paperless (by you know who!) and my eyes were opened to the cool new type of books that were possible on the iPad. These days, the first place I look when I need to learn something new is the iBooks Store.

Filemaker Go blows me away. I have always found cool uses for Filemaker on the desktop, but the iPad version has reached the point that it almost seems like magic.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

An oldie but goodie is Voices 2, a voice changing and recording app. It probably takes the award for both the oldest iOS app I still use as well as one of the most beautifully designed. It is so much fun to open Voices and pass the app around to kids and adults until everyone is laughing at all the different ways it can change your voice. I keep hoping that the developer will release a version for the iPad one of these days, but I should probably give up hope at this point!

I also enjoy the Amazon Windowshop iPad app. Its my go-to when trying to find a gift for someone without knowing exactly what I’m looking for. Using Windowshop reminds me of browsing in an actual retail store, because it is easy to stumble across something cool that I didn’t know existed.

What is the app you are still missing?

Not an app, per se, but I’m still holding out hope for a more useful lock screen. I haven’t really found my stride with Notification Center, and notifications in general seem intrusive and distracting. A cus
tomizable lock screen would be a huge boon for me.

And of course, Scrivener for iPad!

How many times a day do you use your iPhone/iPad?

I have purchased every single iPhone so far on release day, but I recently made the big switch from a iPhone 6 Plus to a very simple feature phone that doesn’t even include a camera. The iPhone is incredible, but I started to notice that it was taking away about as much (or more) from my life as it was adding to it. Fast LTE internet access in my pocket made it far too easy to squander time, and being so connected made it hard for me to be alone with my thoughts. After 7 years of near-constant smartphone use, giving it up has been surprisingly easy (so far).

I still use my iPad a few times a day, but it is much easier to manage how much of my attention I give to the iPad since it doesn’t fit in my pocket and go everywhere with me.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

Hands down: Siri’s voice dictation. Typing on the iPad isn’t bad, but not having to type is great!

If you were in charge at Apple, what would you add or change?

I would slow everything down (just a little). I used to trust that when Apple released something, it would work as described – and beautifully! I feel like software updates have been coming so quickly for the last few years that Apple is having a hard time keeping up with the changes. I’d much rather wait on a polished product than have something that is almost ready (or full of compromises). A recent example: I couldn’t believe the convoluted words coming out of my mouth while I tried to explain to a friend why they should not activate iCloud Drive.

What’s your wallpaper and why?

The grass texture is one of the original wallpapers included with Mac OS 7.5. A while back I booted up an old Mac and experienced instant nostalgia from the desktop pattern alone, so I took screenshots of a few favorites and have been rotating through them. (By the way, repeating patterns really make the Perspective Zoom feature pop.)

Anything else you’d like to share?

The best part of being a Mac user is the community. My sincere thanks all of those who figure out awesome ways to accomplish things and are willing to share their techniques with the world!