When I was setting plans for Macworld 2012, I asked Rob Corddry (IMDB) (Twitter) if he’d fly up to San Francisco to talk about his use of Apple technology in showbiz. I explained there was no budget to pay for his travel or his room but I’d really like him to join us. Rob replied, “If you can guarantee that there will be no per diem or cab fare reimbursement, I’m in.” This is just one of the many reasons why I love Rob. So Rob, show us your home screen.

What are your most interesting home screen apps?
There are a few pretty interesting ones: DC Comics, which I use religiously on the iPad, is the only really good comics browser in my opinion. Action Movie is bordering on fascinating. I also love Chefs Feed and MatchBook. Chefs Feed tells me where chefs choose to eat. Matchbook is a location-based restaurant reminder.

What is your favorite app?
Omnifocus (iPhone) (iPad)is by far the most useful thing ever to be made for the iOS. And if you know Omnifocus, you know that the iOS apps may actually surpass the desktop version.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?
It takes a lot to make me feel guilty. Instagram? Not that I’m ashamed of it, in the way that I cringe a little over my love for the Barbara Streisand and Barry Gibb team-up (best song? Guilty. Very apropos) . I just spend a lot of time on it, poking around in other people’s business.

What is the app you are still missing?
Jott’s sudden incompatibility with Omnifocus left a huge hole in my workflow that still exists. I want to be able to push a button on my steering wheel and have whatever I say show up in my Omnifocus inbox. Nerds?

Have you tried Siri integration? – David

How many times a day do you use your iPhone/iPad?
My iphone keeps trying to poke bio-mechanic tendrils into my wrist. I use my iPad less frequently. I have two scripts I have to read today which will happen on my iPad. I use PDFpen for iPad to take simple notes with a stylus because I’m more of a pencil/pen notetaker. I also read the majority of my DC comics on the iPad because their browser is leaps and bounds better than Marvels or Image’s. I prefer to read most of my comics on real paper anyway.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?
My iPhone is like that fat Swiss Army knife that my Papa gave me when I was too young to even wield a fork that wasn’t blunted, but my iPhone is easier to carry. My favorite singular feature has to be the the camera. I have two really great cameras, a Canon DSLR and a beautiful compact Sony that I NEVER USE.

If you were in charge at Apple, what would you add or change?
I have tiny little gripes about everything that I use but nothing that hasn’t been talked about a million times. My biggest complaint is that my wife and I can’t share stuff between our iTunes accounts. That’s where the gloss wears off for me and I can see the seams in Apple’s fabric. It’s a level of control and security that tarnishes everything else for me.

Anything else you’d like to share?
A lot of people may balk at my folder structure but if I have single apps on multiple pages I get lost.

Thanks Rob.

Click here for more home screens.

Every year I yammer on about the Macworld friends that I only get to see once a year. One of those people is Chris Foresman. Chris is a really smart guy that covers the Apple beat for Ars Technica (Twitter). So Chris, show us your home screen.

What are your most interesting home screen apps?
That’s a tough question. I’d say for the most part my home screen apps are pretty pedestrian‹I chose them for maximum utility. However, I’m really liking Tweetbot; I recently added it to replace the official Twitter client, which is frankly getting to be a pain to use.

I also keep a lot of various photo-related apps in a folder because I’m a consummate iPhone snapper. Lately I’ve been getting into Snapseed, Pano, Diptic, and IncrediBooth.

*What is your favorite app?(
Another hard one. I’m inclined to say Buster, since I use it to navigate Chicago’s CTA busses and trains. Plus, I had a small hand in steering some of its UI conventions. On the other hand, I use Instagram almost daily. Love me some Instagram.

Apps I really like off the home screen: Netflix, iBooks, Kindle,
GarageBand, PNC Virtual Wallet, and Taxi Magic.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?
Probably Ticket To Ride Pocket. I’ve been playing it non-stop since it was released, even though it lacks the various maps and add-ons of the iPad version. Really liking the Game Center turn-by-turn integration, though it
has a few quirks. Just wish I knew more people that wanted to play!

What is the app you are still missing?
I guess Siri, since I still have an iPhone 4. 😉

How many times a day do you use your iPhone and iPad?
I tend to use my iPhone all day long, making calls, staying in touch with friends via Facebook and Twitter, and playing games whenever I have to wait on something. I’m also always taking pictures and posting them via Instagram.

My iPad largely sits idle by the bed, for the occasion I want to do some reading, play some iPad-only games, or do the occasional iPad review. I do like to take the iPad on trips though, if I can avoid taking my laptop.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?
Seamless syncing of important data. When Jobs said “iCloud was the future of Apple for the next decade,” I really hope he means it. I want ALL my data accessible from any of my devices. It will take some time to get there, but looks like Mountain Lion is making some strides in that
direction.

Thanks Chris.

For more home screens clicky here.

One of my favorite people in the Mac community is Jean MacDonald (Twitter), one of the owners of Smile, makers of my beloved TextExpander. The thing about Jean is that every time I spend any significant time with her, I learn some new thing about her that I never knew before, like that she is in a rock band, Ruby Calling, and on the board of directors for Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls. So Jean, shown us your home screen.

What are some of your favorite apps?

Twelve apps are Apple’s default apps, but I use those apps all the time. Of the remaining eight third-party apps, here are a few of the ones I find most interesting: 

GroceryIQ: I like it because it allows me to segment my shopping list by store. There are certain items I only buy at Trader Joe’s, versus New Seasons or Fred Meyer. A shopping list is important part of my process of getting things done. I need to have an easy way to get things off my mind and onto a list that I won’t forget.

WriteRoom: This is my default note-taking app. I like the simplicity of it, and that it has TextExpander support built-in.

Due: This lets me set alarms on an ad-hoc basis. It’s much easier than using the Clock or Calendar app. 

Maybe the most interesting thing about my home screen is what’s NOT there: TextExpander. Obviously, I use TextExpander all the time. But on the iPhone and iPad, the OS does not let TextExpander function the way it does on the Mac. It’s still very useful, but more so in the apps that have added support for expanding TextExpander snippets. Osfoora for Twitter and WriteRoom both have TextExpander integration. TextExpander is on Screen 3, along with all the other apps that support it. It just doesn’t get opened very often, especially now that all my snippets are synced via Dropbox.

What is your favorite app?

Maps. When I got my first iPhone, I was heading out on a solo road trip from Portland to Northern California. I never anticipated how useful the Maps app would be, even before there was GPS in the phone. I love calculating how much time is left until I reach my destination. I was just in Chicago, and I used the Public Transit option to plan my trips around the city. I use the app to check traffic. And I use it just for fun, to go look at some exotic destination in satellite view, or to show someone my neighborhood in southeast Portland.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Cat Piano. I use it to mess with dogs.

What is the app you are still missing?

I want an app that can identify trees and flowers from a snapshot. Kind of like Shazam for plants. 

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

My iPhone is almost never more than a foot away from me. I use it too many times a day to count. I use the iPad two or three times a day, more if I’m traveling.

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

I would let developers respond to App Store reviews. The system right now is so frustrating. Frequently, the gripes could be resolved with a quick response. I’d also like to encourage all your readers to take a few minutes to leave reviews for their favorite apps. It really does make a difference!

Thanks Jean.

For more home screens clicky here.

Michael Schechter (Twitter) publishes A Better Mess, where he writes about productivity and creativity. Michael is among that breed of bloggers that keeps up a day job and still makes time to create something special for the rest of us. So Michael, show us your home screen.

What are your most interesting home screen apps?

I recently moved from Manhattan to Brooklyn and now spend an extra hour every workday on the subway. In fact, I’m writing this right on the iPhone while sitting on the B-Train. So as you can imagine, this extra time has helped me grow quite close with my home screen. Most of that time is split between three apps: Simplenote for writing, Instapaper for reading and Instacast for listening. While these may not be all that exciting, they are the most useful to me and are where I spend the bulk of my time. Between my full-time job and two young kids, my commute is oddly the best time time for learning and creating; those apps make that possible.

What is your favorite app?

Instapaper, by a large margin. Not only has it changed the way I read, but the way I educate myself. The ability to seamlessly pull articles, blog posts and email newsletters into one place for offline reading was a game changer for me. Combine that with the ability to send quotes to Tumblr and send items to Omnifocus when an article requires me to create a task and it’s easy to see why I yell at anyone with an iPhone to give Marco his $5.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

I spend far too much time in Instacast, especially with the 5by5 and 70Decibel networks. It’s one part pure enjoyment and one part necessity. I know a lot of people require boredom to do their best thinking, but I’ve never really fared well with it. Podcasts seem to be this great middle ground where I can focus on what I’m listening to yet somehow allow my mind to wander. It’s common that I’ll be listening along and an idea will resonate or an errant thought will fly by. The iPhone makes it so easy to shift gears, jump into Simplenote and capture the idea for a future project (occasionally I’ll end up riding that momentum and write an entire post). Instagram is worth noting as a close runner up, as I tend to take an excessive number of pictures of my two little girls.

What is the app you are still missing?

I’m going to cheat a little here and talk about a feature that I wish more apps included. While I’m not a huge fan of notifications, I have the short term memory of a goldfish and the current notification system makes them all too easy to overlook. It’s the reasons I prefer Due over Reminders, even in lieu of Reminders’ Siri integration and location-based notifications. The fact that Due persists until I do the thing I need to do is invaluable for small, easily forgettable tasks, the very tasks that often save my marriage and career. I guess if I was forced to sum it up as an app, I wish there was a notification app for my notifications…

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

I think it is safe to assume that should/when my wife leaves me, the iPhone will be stated as the cause. Checking my phone has become a bit of an addiction; it’s a habit I really need to break. It’s more than just enjoyment, it has become a big part of both my personal and professional workflows. I have the world’s worst handwriting and a generally poor relationship with paper, so the phone is always my go-to device for capturing tasks and thoughts throughout the day. It has become such a big part of my day that I just forget to put the damn thing down sometimes.

As for the iPad, it plays a lesser role (it just doesn’t fit well with a rush-hour subway crowd), but for tasks like mind mapping, the additional screen real estate is a must.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

I’m a big fan of the integration between third-party apps. They’ve created a tapestry of tech that lets me accomplish a previously improbable amount when away from my desk. The marriage of TextExpander and Simplenote is a perfect example of how an app that appears to be as bare bones as Simplenote can prove to be so useful.

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

I wish that some of that same third-party integration would make its way into Apple’s own apps (I know it will never happen, but a boy can dream, can’t he?). This is especially painful for managing email and it forces me to use the device for triage more than processing. The lack of TextExpander integration has been troubling to me, especially when it comes to handling customer service requests for our business. Then again, I now spend time on the subway reading and writing for myself rather than responding to work emails, so maybe they are onto something there…

Anything else you’d like to share?

It may seem silly, but take the time to figure out what you want from the phone. For the longest time, my phone was a dumping ground. I just kept downloading apps with no real thought as to where they should go, why I needed them and how many was enough. Over the past year, I’ve really evolved my relationship with the home screen. I decided to rethink my usage and made three simple rules: 1) no folders on the home screen, 2) no more than two pages worth of apps (including the home screen) and 3) Minimize notifications and eliminate badges with the exception of new texts, voicemails and overdue Omnifocus tasks. These may seem like an arbitrary limitation, but the lack of alerts help keep me focused and the real estate restrictions forced me to think long and hard about how I wanted to use the device.

Thanks Michael.

Click here for more home screens.

Stephen Hackett (Twitter) is one of my favorite bloggers with an eclectic mix of Apple news, tips, and culture at 512 Pixels. Stephen was nice enough to share his home screen.

What are your most interesting home screen apps?

Overall, I think my choices are pretty boring. The apps on my home screen are all from widely-used categories. Everyone takes notes, checks the weather and listens to music. I haven’t even changed the position of some of them, like Messages, Calendar and Photos.

That said, the least well-known one (to non-nerds) is probably OmniFocus. My entire life is inside that app.

What is your favorite app?

Camera+ wins this one for me. It is fast, includes some great editing tools and has social sharing built-in. While I use Instagram heavily, the raw speed of this app makes it a great replacement for the built-in Camera app, at least on my iPhone 4.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Currently, it is Instacast. It’s the best podcatcher I’ve tried. I like finding apps that work like Apple-built ones, and this one fits that bill. I listen to a ton of shows, both on the 5by5 and 70Decibels network, of which I am a part.

That said, I’m not sure “guilty pleasure” is a great term. I don’t play games on my iPhone, so Instacast is the closest thing I’ve got, I suppose.

What is the app you are still missing?

I would love a really good WordPress app. I’m begging you, Daniel Jalkut. Begging.

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

I use my iPhone heavily throughout the work day. It’s my podcast machine, so it is usually always plugged in to my truck while driving. During the day, I use it mainly as a phone.

I use my iPad for a very specific set of actions. I love OmniFocus on the iPad, and use it daily. I also enjoy Instapaper and (as plain as it seems) Safari on the tablet as well. These apps see heavy usage in the morning and evenings at home. At work, I use the iPad to review documents and take meeting notes.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

I like that there is very little that can (or does) go wrong. If an app is crashy, usually a reboot or re-install will fix it. While I love Mac OS X, iOS is just much simpler to the user.

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

I’d like to see the home screen on the iPhone rotate, like on the iPad. (Oh, and they should fix the deal where icons move around when orientation changes on the iPad.)

Anything else you’d like to share?

A lot of people who seen screenshots of my iPhone or iPad wonder why I don’t have Simplenote handy. While I do like the service — and used it for a long time — I now use PlainText on iOS, which syncs via Dropbox. On the Mac, I use nvALT, again syncing with Dropbox. I love plain text files, and Dropbox (of course) handles them very well. I simplified, and Simplenote didn’t make the cut.

Thanks Stephen.

To read about more home screens, clicky here

For some time now, I’ve been following MacStories.net. Only recently, however, I’ve started corresponding with MacStories’ Federico Viticci (Twitter). Federico is a really bright guy and was kind enough to show off his home screens.

What are your most interesting home screen apps?

I think the “most interesting” apps are the ones that allow me to get work done from an iPhone or iPad without having to rely on my Mac all the time. Notely, for instance, is a great text editor with Dropbox support, Markdown integration and customizable keyboard — I got all my iOS 5 and iCloud coverage done with it on the iPad. Adobe Carousel is a recent addition to my home screen, but I can see it working in the long term for me as I’ve been looking for some sort of Photo Stream alternative with more options and control. Carousel allows me to forget about “library management” through a Mac because my photos are in sync everywhere and the iOS clients have good editing capabilities. Last I’d mention Evernote — perhaps it’s not really “interesting” to many as it’s a rather old app and note-taking may not be as exciting as the latest Instagram clone, but I keep all kinds of data and information inside Evernote, and the iOS app has received some terrific improvements recently.

What is your favorite app?

Instapaper. Specifically, Instapaper for iPad. There are hundreds of great apps for iOS, dozens that I’ve tried over the years and could be my “favorite” ones, but looking back at  the degree of innovation brought to the platform and overall enhancement of my digital habits, I say Instapaper is the app that has most changed the way I approach my iPhone and iPad as “reading devices” in my free time. Instapaper is my favorite app because I didn’t think an app could improve and deeply change the way I read. The latest 4.0 update made it impossible for me not to love it even more.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Rdio. Mostly because it’s not available in Italy, but it turns out you can use it with gift cards and a regular US VPN. I’m a Rdio subscriber, which means I can use the service on my Mac, iPhone and iPad. I used to be a die-hard Spotify fan, but since I’ve started listening to music on Rdio I’ve been very impressed with these guys’ music catalogue and iOS apps. The iPad client is fantastic, and something Spotify is still missing.

What is the app you are still missing?

Back to my Mac for iOS. I’ve been using different apps to remotely access my Mac’s screen, files or media over the Internet in the past months, but I’d like to see an integrated solution from Apple that thoroughly takes advantage of iCloud and your Apple ID to make your Mac available anywhere. The iPhone could serve as a mini-client to browse documents and stream media, whereas the iPad would get screen-controlling capabilities. I know Apple’s future is in iCloud (Documents in the iCloud, iTunes Match) and clearly the company would have to figure out a way to emulate a Mac’s screen on a multitouch surface, but third-parties have done this before and I believe there’s still a large percentage of files and documents that can’t be stored in iCloud, but would still be convenient to have remotely available for reading, sharing, etc. 

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

I use my iPhone all the time. When I’m at my Mac, my iPhone is on my desk and I use it for phone calls, iMessages, FaceTime — mostly communication features. When I’m out, my iPhone is my mobile workstation with access to Twitter, RSS, MacStories’ chatroom and all kinds of networks and services I use on a daily basis. When I’m not using my Mac, I use my iPad to catch up on news and Twitter, play games, write articles, read my Instapaper queue or iBooks, watch movies and listen to Rdio. I haven’t measured the amount of time I spend with my iPad, but I’m fairly sure it’s around 4 hours per day. I use it a lot more during the weekends though, when I don’t open my MacBook Air at all.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

It’s a difficult choice between the 4S’ Retina Display and camera, and the iPad 2’s multitasking gestures. If I really had to pick one for the iPhone I’d say the Retina Display. Ever since its introduction last year, the amount of pixels Apple put into the device has enabled me to read any kind of text with ease — quality is amazing. Gestures are just another “wow factor” of multitouch on portable displays, and with iOS 5 they make it extremely simple and fast to switch between apps and go back to the Home screen.

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

To go back to the topic of Back to my Mac, I’d focus on making devices aware of each other and capable of effortlessly sharing information and data without having to use apps or external tools. This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while and I’m sure it’s already happening elsewhere with a combination of NFC and cloud-based services — imagine being able to share a webpage or photo with a friend by simply “bumping” two iPhones, or control the iPhone’s camera from an iPad. And because the Mac has been demoted to “just a device”, I think there would be room for deeper, native, intuitive integration with all these devices that are already using a single iCloud account. Maybe it’ll be a hardware component or new software technologies, but I’d like to see Apple’s devices gaining the capability of “talking” to each other. 

“Siri, make sure my iPad is loading Apple’s keynote video when I get home”.

Anything else you’d like to share?

It’s an exciting time to watch new technologies unfold and evolve, and I believe we’ve only scratched the surface with cloud services, voice recognition, and touch interfaces. I’m impressed every single day by what we’re able to do with devices today, but I’m always looking forward to whatever’s next.

Thanks Federico.

To read about more home screens, clicky here

I’ve recently come to know Ryan Irelan (Twitter). Ryan is a busy guy working with Happy Cog and publishing his own screencast series at Mijingo. Ryan is also the guy did such a great job filling in for Dan Benjamin when he was on leave from 5by5. So Ryan, show us your home screen.

What is your favorite app?

Right now my favorite app on my home screen is Instacast. I only recently purchased it and after using it for a day I promoted it to my home screen. Even with wireless syncing in iOS 5, using Instacast to subscribe to and listen to podcasts is a much better experience than using iTunes.

As you can see from the screenshot, I’m a little behind on my listening. My podcast subscriptions consist of shows from 5by5, The Moth Podcast, NPR’s Planet Money, To the Best of Our Knowledge and, of course This American Life. I used to also listen to the Bob Edwards Show from Sirius XM but they cancelled the podcast version for reasons that I’m sure were ill informed. I’m not in my car enough to catch it on the radio.

Speaking of being in the car: I use the Rdio app and service as my main music source while on the go. As long as I have at least a 3G connection I can access just about any song or album I want. It has offline syncing so I can listen to my favorite albums while on an airplane or those other extremely rare occasions that I am without an Internet connection. To me, Rdio is how Apple would do streaming music.

What is the app you are still missing?

The one described in the stalled project in my OmniFocus database.

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

For the last five years I’ve worked from home so I don’t use my phone as much during the day as someone who is constantly on the go or isn’t allowed to access their favorite apps and services from work.

I do use my phone a lot while hanging out with my daughter to capture moments as photos and videos. The photos and videos are uploaded to her private Tumblr site or sent via text message to my parents, family, and friends.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

Using it. Okay, that’s not a feature but the devices are a pleasure to use.

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

This is probably on the punch list for a future version of iOS but I’d like to be able to customize the Notification Center in iOS 5. It is a huge improvement over the old notifications and you can set per app notifications but there are some tweaks I’d like to see.

Anything else you’d like to share?

I mentioned this in my contribution to the 5by5 Steve Jobs tribute but the iPhone and the apps I use have been vitally important in documenting the first year of my daughter’s life.

My parents travel full time and we have immediate family spread up and down the East Coast of the United States and in Germany. Having an insanely simple, near effortless way to share photos and videos right from my phone makes living far away easier. Those moments you saw in the touching FaceTime commercials really happen.

Thanks Ryan

To read about more home screens, clicky here

If you are an OmniFocus nerd (and a surprising number of MacSparky readers are), you really owe it to yourself to subscribe to Sven Fechner’s (Twitter) blog,
SimplicityIsBliss, where Sven posts amazing tips and advice and getting the best out of OmniFocus and other productivity tips. So Sven, show us your home screen.

What are your most interesting home screen apps?

Most of the apps I have on my home screen I would consider pretty standard apps. Just all you need to be productive, travel, stay healthy and communicate.

The more interesting aspect of my home screen is that every app’s place has a meaning. Generally all my three screens on the iPhone are arrange the same way: With only one app in the last row. Why that is? For asthetic reasons mostly as whitespace of all forms helps me relax.

Next to my heavy used dock apps my key apps are in the four corners of the 3×4 matrix.
* Agenda is something I tap very often since I am on manager’s schedule and things keep changing quite a bit
* Instagram is basically replacing my camera app (although I also have Camera+ installed, which I use every now and then). In it’s latest update Instagram amazes me with it’s real-time filter previews
* PlainText is my text editor of choice – simple and with DropBox integration – when I need to quickly take a note, I rarely enter more than two or three sentences on the iPhone though. Enough to sketch an idea or remeber where I parked the car at the airport.
* Finally, of course, OmniFocus for iPhone. The way I use OmniFocus on the iPhone is relatively plain: Look at some key perspectives and quickly enter some actions or keywords addressing things that have my attention. I am not really leveraging all of OmniFocus for iPhone amazing features.

For the other apps the priority decreases towards the center of the screen. Second most important are apps
* WebEx (lots of online conference, unfortunately)
* Mindjet hasn’t been the best mind mapping software on iOS with it’s first release. But since I bought the Mac version, the iOS version also got some feature bumps in is bending into shape.
* Podcasts = Instacast. Enough said.
* My Travel folder, which has all apps I need for business travel like airline, railway, public transport, taxi. Highlights include TripDeck, which keeps me in sync with my iternaries on TripIt and TripAdvisor, which provides the most reliable hotel and restraunt reviews on an international basis. ConvertBot for conversations, Tipulator and Night Stand complete my personal travel essentials.

What is your favorite app?

Can’t really decide. I love TweetBot and infact all apps by tapbots for their design and functionality – wish they would eventually do iPad versions. RunKeeper is a great app as well and it reminds me everyday of one of my most important goals: Become a real good Mountain Bike rider.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Don’t need to think twice here: It’s foursquare (in my Travel folder). I am doing quite some travel and check in where ever I can just because foursquare is creating something I would like to see in more social apps: Competition. I just can’t stand it if my colleague and friend ousts me as the mayor of my company’s local office. There are useful aspects in foursquare, but it’s definitely a guilty pleasure.

What is the app you are still missing?

As the iOS ecosystem expand I hope to see more niche apps that help Mountain Bike riders to create communities, share trails and tours and so forth. At the moment apps like RunKeeper or Cyclemeter do some elements, but are relative generic.

While it’s maybe not necessarily an app, I miss some “glue” that brings everything together. Due to the nature of apps on iOS they are predomintaely isolated: With the exception of DropBox integration or the ability of open certain files in a different app there is not much of interaction between apps.

I would love to open the support material folder in Dropbox for a project I am looking at in OmniFocus, see the appointments for the project and access contact information or instant message key people associated with the project. I can do some of this on the Mac – with heavy AppleScript support – but none on iOS.

How many times a day do you use your iPhone?

My iPhone gets pulled out very often if I am what I call ultra-mobile. While I have at least my MacBook Air 11.6” with me at most times, my iPhone is in heavy use when on the run and travelling while the MBA sleeps in my Timbuk2 bag.
I need to look up flight numbers, see what tasks I can get done on the run, jot some ideas down, review changes to my schedule and of course: Check-into Starbucks on foursquare and make photos of remarkable things with Instagram.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone?

The ability to put it into slient mode easily.

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

Clean up the App Store from that flood of poorly designed apps that have no recognizable value. Or at least provide better navigation and filtering capabilities to find the true gems.

Thanks Sven

For more home screens clicky here.

I first discovered Yuvi Zalkow (Twitter) when he made a remarkable screencast about writing tools on the Mac. Yuvi has a unique take on writing and technology at YuviZalkow.com. Yuvi is also a novelist with his first book, Not in My Lifetime, coming out next year. Yuvi explains the book was rejected by 29 literary agents before he got a publisher. And that, ladies and gentlemen, makes Yuvi awesome.

So Yuvi, show us your home screen.

What are your most interesting home screen apps?

Well lately I’ve been fascinated by apps that take advantage of useful iPhone gestures. iCatcher and Tweetbot are two apps that I love and have good gestures. With iCatcher, I can swipe in various ways to go backward/forward five seconds, 30 seconds, and two minutes. With Tweetbot, I can hold my finger on a link in a tweet for a second and then tap on a button to quickly send it to Instapaper. (mmm… Instapaper.)

What is your favorite app?

Wow. Tough one. I think my writing app is my most critical app. Two essential qualities in a writing app for me are TextExpander support and Dropbox support. I honestly, really, truly work on my novel on my iPhone via Dropox (syncing it to the fabulous Mac app, Scrivener). I’ve used many cool writing apps (e.g. Notesy, Elements), but my current favorite is WriteRoom. I like WriteRoom’s customizability. I try not to be too fiddly about these things, but every few months I like to tweak the look & feel to get a fresh perspective on my writing. Even just a small color tweak can help me see a difficult scene in a fresh way.

And if I can cheat and name another app, I would mention OmniFocus. I love it. Very smart design that makes it easy for me to enter new actions and quickly check off existing actions.

What app is your guilty pleasure?

I don’t play games these days — just too strung out between family life, day job life, novel writing life, and presentation-making life. So my guilty pleasure is dipping too deeply into either Twitter (via Tweetbot) or into my RSS feed (via Reeder).

What is the app you are still missing?

I do long for text-to-speech inside my text editor. I know that functionality already exists, but I’d love it seamlessly embedded inside a great text editor. I use text-to-speech as a critical tool when editing my writing — there’s nothing like a detached, unemotional, computer voice to test whether the writing stands on its own.

How many times a day do you use your iPhone?

How many times a day do you breathe? Divide that number by 3.25. And that’s about my iPhone usage.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone?

It may not seem so shocking these days, but I’m still amazed by the coolness of syncing text files between all my computers and devices. I can no longer fathom how I wrote before this era.

Anything else you’d like to share?

Well I’m currently experiencing a calendar-related dilemma. Which one should I use? You’ll see two of them on my home screen!… I love that continuous week view of Agenda and I love how quickly you can enter events in Calvetica. Help!

Thanks so much for letting me participate in your home screen series! I’ve been a fan for a while.

Thanks Yuvi

Want to see more home screens? Clicky here.

This week’s home screen features my newest friend from Portugal, Jorge Pedroso (Twitter). Jorge is one of the two developers that created my current favorite simple text editor, Byword. Jorge loves his iPhone and agreed to share. So Jorge, show us your home screen.

What are your most interesting home screen apps?

• Instacast is filling my recent addiction to podcasts—thanks a lot, 5by5. It made the podcast subscribing+listening experience much more pleasant. Streaming is a killer feature and the iTunes and iPod apps simply don’t cut it.

• Droplr I use to quickly share iPhone screenshots and video over-the-air with co-workers. It’s a great way to quickly show issues in the apps as we develop when one of us is working remotely.

• RTP is how I keep up with portuguese news. These days, the news coming are mostly not that good but the app is pretty great.

• Tiny Wings for casual gaming. Perfectly designed, relaxing, challenging and different every day.

What is your favorite app?

Mobile Safari. For me, it alone revolutionized the mobile internet and made it a first class experience on handheld devices. When I’m on the go, I find myself using it all the time, directly or indirectly through other app.

Mail and Twitter for iPhone deserve honorable mentions for being my most used apps.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Ranky. I can’t help it. Having apps selling on the App Store puts one in constant desire of checking the App Store ranks. I hope this gets better with time.

What is the app you are still missing?

Not missing much but I’ve been looking for a simple, yet comprehensive, personal analytics app. A smart writing app with Markdown capabilities would be nice for the go too. Just saying.

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

As many times as I hear it emitting a sound. I check Mail and Twitter on the iPhone and Metaclassy’s customer support comes through those channels. I’m not complaining (yet). I love my job.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

I’ll pick two, if I may. One on software and another on hardware.

On software, it’s iOS in general and the App Store in particular. They destroyed so many barriers, both for users and developers. I thank iOS for the overall quality of most apps and the App Store for the simplicity of getting those same apps.

On hardware, it’s the Retina display of the iPhone 4. I still remember the wow moment when I first had it in my hands. For weeks, it made it really difficult for me to use an iPad frequently again (or any other mobile device for that matter). I got used to the differences but I eagerly wait for the day where pixels are no longer human-detectable squares in our screens.

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

Well, I hate it when I’m laying down in bed/couch, reading or something, and the iPhone slips and falls on my face. So, I’d consider adding Velcro on the iPhone’s back and a glove. Skin magnets could work too. Needs research.

Other than that, giving high priority to all radars (issues and improvements) I submitted to bugreport.apple.com would be pretty cool.

Anything else you’d like to share?

I’m eagerly anticipating the next year, as a developer and as a user. After the mobile shift, it seems everyone is already undergoing another shift in personal computing where data is supposed to come full-circle seamlessly across all devices. MacSparky was spot on calling multi-platform as a feature at the center of it. Consequently, data portability and interoperability will increasingly become features/concerns to look out for. For me, it will be yet another busy year—in a good way.

Thanks Jorge.

To read more home screens, clicky here