I first met Wendy Cherwinski (twitter) in the Macworld speaker room several years ago. Wendy has this disarming, infectious smile and near encyclopedic knowledge of Keynote and presenting skills. It makes sense after all. Wendy pays her rent writing speeches and teaching people to communicate at Echelon Communications.

What are your most interesting home screen apps?

We’re probably talking about the suite of apps I’ve named ‘productivity’. As a writer, I’m always reaching for a note-taking app such as SimpleNote to copy some gem I’ve gleaned from Twitter or the Web. It’s also great to have a text editor like PlainText handy so I can start working on a speech, presentation or article and then pick up the project later on either my iMac or MacBookPro. As you might guess, I’m a big fan of DropBox.

What is your favorite app?

My very favorite app is Scrivener, which is actually a Mac app. It’s superb for writing speeches because you can dip into your research so easily while you work on a draft. Using Scrivener and TextExpander together really helps chip time off speech assignments. My favourites apps on the iPhone are Captio and Say It Mail It. I generate some of my best ideas when I’m out for a walk. Captio lets me capture my thoughts and email them to myself. I use Say It Mail It to record spoken ideas that I want to share with my husband.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

I’m mostly all business when it comes to using my iPhone. However, I like to relax with my Crosswords app on the iPad. Blocking out the world, and concentrating on what fits ‘down’ and ‘across’ for an hour or so is definitely a guilty pleasure.

What is the app you are still missing?

I just bought Notesy and can’t wait to give it a spin. It’s a note-taking app that syncs with DropBox so you can work across your iPhone, iPad and computer. Plus you can email your notes, which is a feature I find especially attractive. Actually, I’m missing every note-taking and text editing app that has yet to be invented. I love to get new ones and give them a test drive.

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

I use both of them too many times a day to count. When the alarm goes off in the morning I grab one or the other to check Twitter and email while I listen to the news on the radio. Over breakfast, I scroll through news sites while I read the paper. (I often have to search through sections of the paper to retrieve my iPhone before heading off to my office.) Basically, if I’m not in front of my computer, I have either my iPhone or iPad in hand. Before bed I set them up to recharge.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

I love watching videos on both devices. My husband likes to shoot video on our holidays and then create tightly edited movies complete with music. In an idle moment I can watch a movie and enjoy the walk down memory lane. Priceless.

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

I would improve the integration between mobile devices and the desktop (less dependence on iTunes). MobileMe should behave more like DropBox and wireless syncing of docs between iOS and OSX apps would be terrific.

Anything else you’d like to share?

Another of my favourite Apple products is my iPod nano. I bought a band so I can wear it as a wristwatch. It works great!

Thanks Wendy.

This week’s home screen post features Ben Waldie (Web site and Twitter) is the godfather of Mac automation. Ben has written books and published some excellent screencasts on the subject. Indeed, when Microsoft wanted to add Automator tools to the office suite, they went to Ben. I had the pleasure meeting Ben this year at Macworld and he is just as nice as he is smart. So Ben, show us your home screen.

What are your most interesting home screen apps?

Well, I should probably begin by explaining my home screen app organization process. As you can see, I organize my apps into folders, which are arranged alphabetically. Within each folder, I arrange the apps themselves alphabetically too. By doing so, I always know where any given app resides. The only exceptions are games, which I don’t organize alphabetically. Why not? Because I have multiple folders of games, and I don’t want to reorganize every time I install a new one. (I also arrange my Mac OS X Dock alphabetically, and yes, I realize I’m a freak.)

While I probably wouldn’t consider them most interesting, the apps I use the most are the ones that let me get work done efficiently while on the go. I use Mail and Safari regularly, iCal and AddressBook (with MobileMe sync), Dropbox, OmniFocus, and LogMeIn.

The app I find most interesting and fun is Star Walk. Just point your iPhone at the sky wherever you are, and it shows you real time information about stars, planets, satellites, and more.

What is your favorite app?

My favorite app changes on a regular basis. At the moment, it’s probably Reeder, which I use to keep up to date on the latest tech news. I love its ease of use, nice interface, and sync integration with Google Reader, which eliminates the need for me to read the same headlines when I switch devices.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

I freely admit that I love Facebook for keeping track of what’s going on in the lives of friends and family.

What is the app you are still missing?

This isn’t an app, it’s more of a feature… I’m still missing a way to wirelessly keep my entire iPad/iPhone in sync with my Mac. Sync is super important to me, since I never know what device I’ll have with me at any given time. I have configured some apps to sync using Dropbox or MobileMe, but I’d like to see something on a more global scale.

An app I’m missing is one that will eliminate supermarket and other retail membership cards, so I don’t need to carry them in my wallet. I have actually seen some apps designed for this, but they don’t work with most checkout scanners.

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

It’s difficult to calculate, but I would estimate that I often don’t go for 5 minutes without using one or the other. My wife just considers them extensions of my arms.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

My favorite feature is probably the camera. I love having such a great quality camera with me wherever I go to capture the funny things my kids are doing, special events, UFOs, or whatever else I encounter. I also love using apps like Photoshop Express and Camera+ to manipulate and improve photos right on my phone. And, of course, the ability to video chat with the kids when I’m away on business is simply awesome.

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

I’m sure there are a million things I’d add or change. One would be to improve the printing capabilities. Another would be to allow FaceTime usage over 3G (in the interim, Skype works great for this).

Anything else you’d like to share?

Thanks for your interest in checking out my home screen!

Thanks Ben.

Even after publishing MacSparky.com for 4 years, part of me still sometimes forgets that other people read it. So you can imagine my surprise when I heard from writer, director, and actor David Wain (twitter and IMDb). You can learn a lot more about David at his Web site. I’m a fan of David’s from way back. If you’ve never seen it before, you really should check out The State, perhaps the best sketch comedy show ever. David, when not writing and directing the latest Jennifer Aniston movie, is busy playing with his iPhone. So David, show us your home screen.

What are your most interesting home screen apps?

I’ve been using GPS Drive while on an extended work trip to Los Angeles (normally I don’t drive when home in NYC). I love having one less device to keep track of, and I particularly like how it pauses the iPod (like when I’m listening to Mac Power Users) when it wants to tell me where to turn. It also syncs with my address book so I rarely have to type in an address.

The other one I find indispensable in the car (as well as when running) is FlickTunes which allows me to control my music and podcasts with simple one- two- and three-finger swipes – I never have to look down at the screen.

I’ve also been enjoying Dialvetica’s smart way of knowing which contacts I want to have in front of me when I open it.

What is your favorite app?

Instapaper, no competition. It has erased that agita I get whenever I come across something I want to read but don’t have time at that moment. When I get into bed at night, I read my Instapaper articles (in the dark mode that automatically kicks in after sundown). I prefer reading in bed on the iPhone vs the iPad because of the retina display and the much lighter weight. (It’s amazing that just a couple of years ago when traveling I used to bring books, magazines, a GPS, white noise machine, iPod, cell phone, address book, alarm clock and day planner. Now ALL of that is in the iPhone, and actually better.)

I also love MOG – like having an iPod with millions of songs. So much fun. Honorable mention: Simplenote, Yelp.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

I play Words With Friends with my sisters pretty much every time I sit on the toilet. I know that sounds gross but you know what I mean. I love flipping through my Twitter feed but try not to because it’s so addictive.

What is the app you are still missing?
The one that controls brightness without having to go to settings > brightness. I’m adjusting brightness all the time.

How many times a day do you use your iPhone?

I’m definitely one of those for whom the iPhone has become an appendage. It’s just so damn useful! I’m going to try to do electronics free Saturdays when I’m done with my current work stint, because it can get to be too much.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone?

I love the overall “just works” factor. That things tend to happen the way you expect them too, and they’ve got it to the point where you don’t have to fiddle with it too much (if you don’t want to).

If you were in charge at Apple, what would you add or change?
I’d let those users who care to customize their experience be allowed to do so. They can still have the automatic user-friendly closed version for casual losers, but let the geeks go under the hood if they want!

Also I hate when I pull out my phone because I want to show someone my home screen image of my kids, but there’s a text message there so it blocks it. These are the kinds of things they should allow us to customize!

AND I hate the podcast organizing system. Why can’t you erase a podcast on your iPhone and have it then be erased on your iTunes!?

Anything else you’d like to share?

I’ve never publicly gotten so Mac geeky. Thanks for letting my inner nerd shine!

Thanks David!

This week’s Home Screen post features Dan Benjamin (Twitter). Dan has quietly built a podcasting empire at 5by5 Studios with numerous quality shows. While I’ve not had the opportunity to meet Dan in person, he guested on the Mac Power Users and I’ve listened to enough of his podcasts that, at this point, he feels like an old friend. Dan recently bought a shiny new Verizon iPhone after spending a few years on Web OS and Android devices. So Dan, what is on your home screen.

What are your most interesting home screen apps?

Most of the apps I have on my home screen are task related, obviously the things I use most, so they tend to be less interesting and more practical or related to work and communication. The exception to this is Instagram, which would probably qualify as being the most interesting. I love it.

What is your favorite app?

The Camera app, if you can believe it. This app, and the iPhone 4’s photo and video capabilities are so great. I’m the parent of a 3-year old, and being able to use my phone to capture any moment is an incredible thing. And the app is just great.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Angry Birds, of course.

What is the app you are still missing?

The one that lets us sync everything without a physical connection to iTunes. Oh, it would be slow over wifi, you say? That’s fine, I’m patient.

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

I use my iPhone and iPad as primary devices as part of my work, and whenever I’m out. It’s not constant, but it’s a lot.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

The iOS operating system itself, and the benefits and constraints it places on developers. After spending about a year with Android and webOS, I can tell you first hand that iOS is much easier and more fun to use.

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

The IAP thing is a bit frustrating for my developer friends, and I’d like to see that get worked out in a way that makes more sense for the long haul. I don’t have answers, though, as to how it should work, but it feels kind of wrong the way it is.

And now that there’s a Verizon iPhone 4, the only thing missing is the syncing over wifi.

Anything else you’d like to share?

I use my iPhone 10x more than I used my Android or Palm device. OK, so now I’m sounding like an Apple fanboy. Sorry, but it’s just the truth: Apple made a better, easier to use, and more fun tool. I feel lucky every time I use an iOS device, like I’m in the future. Now I just need a jet-car.

Thanks Dan!

Shawn Blanc (twitter) is one of the premier Mac bloggers and recently made the ballsy move of turning his blog, ShawnBlanc.net, into his full time gig. I am a fan. I asked Shawn to share his iPad screen today, on iPad 2 launch day, and he was kind enough to help out. So Shawn, let’s see your home screen.

What are your most interesting home screen apps?

iBooks, OmniFocus, and Wired come to mind as being the apps that most capture my curiosity in the iPad.

• Wired because I think it’s a great magazine and I enjoy reading it on my iPad every month. I enjoy how the icon color and loading screen change colors for every updated issue and I even appreciate how it notifies me when there are new issues for download.

  But really I like Wired because: (a) my roots in design are with print and layout; (b) I’ve had a longstanding affinity for software and technology; and (c) I love to read on my iPad. So, in a way, Wired represents the amalgamation of all these things: it’s a print magazine that discusses technology and which is moving to the iPad as a new medium for delivery.

• OmniFocus because here’s an app that has been on the Desktop for years, and yet, somehow, they bust out a version on the iPad that blows the original out of the water. Here’s an app that shows just how exciting a future the iPad has for personal computing and getting work done. Or, put another way, OmniFocus is a great example of how such a complex application with layers and layers of information can work so well on a small touch screen tablet.

• And iBooks because what I do most on the iPad is read. And though the reading environment in iBooks isn’t amazing it is pretty great. I’m not a total bookworm, like some people I know, but I do like to always be reading through a book or two. I’ve purchased several books from the iBookstore, and also have some other eBooks and PDFs that I’ve added into iBooks.

  And the fact that I can highlight, bookmark, and add notes makes it great as well. I’d like to start writing book reviews too, and so these extra bits of functionality make it great to jot down and highlight in preparation to return to the book and write a review of it.

What is your favorite app?

Instapaper. By a long shot. I’ve said before that if there was ever an app that was like a good cup of coffee it would be Instapaper.

By far and away the thing I do most with my iPad is read. And Instapaper is, in my opinion, the best reading app on the iPad. It is such a splendidly simple app and service that it fits into hundreds of different use-cases. I think that’s why explaining what it does is nothing at all like explaining what it is.

Instapaper isn’t just a service. It’s like some sort of placebo. When you find something great you save it and move on, knowing that something of value is now in a place you know you’ll get to it. And so Reading Later has become a favorite habit.

What is the app you are still missing?

It’s not so much an app that I feel is missing as much as a service. A syncing service.

I am hesitant to use apps that do not sync automatically between my laptop, iPhone, and iPad. I would love to see better over-the-air sync for all apps and other data. I think that MobileMe could have huge potential as a syncing server for all the data and apps on our iPads and iPhones.

Something as fast and easy to use as Dropbox — meaning it would sync and share info and files — but it would let other apps use it for syncing. Imagine setting up your iPhone with your Apple ID once, and then any app that has a Mac and/or iPad counterpart would sync.

Including the 3rd-party apps. If MobileMe could be used by 3rd-party developers it would make their jobs significantly easier

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

I use my iPhone much more than my iPad — especially when I’m out and about. And I work mostly on my laptop. Though I use my iPad for checking email, writing, checking Twitter, and playing an occasional game, I mostly use it for the things it does better than any of my other gadgets, which means reading and doing reviews of my to-do lists in OmniFocus.

What is your favorite feature of the iPad?

The battery. My iPad’s battery usually lasts for up to 12 hours. I’ve never owned a gadget like that. With my iPhone or laptop — and even my bluetooth headset I keep in the car — it’s common for the battery life to interrupt the workflow and interaction I have with the device.

With the iPad I rarely ever worry or think about the battery at all. It’s just something I’ve begun to take for granted. Even when it goes into the “red zone” it means I still have a couple hours of battery life.

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

I would give out free scoops of Rocky Road ice cream to people who stand in line every spring and summer to buy iPhones and iPads.

Anything else you’d like to share?

For those who may want to snag it, the background image I’m currently using can be found here (and I found it via Prettify).

Thanks Shawn!

This week’s home screen post features one of my favorite Mac developers, Keith Blount, who very quietly revolutionized word processing with his outstanding application, Scrivener (also, see Scrivener on twitter). In addition to being a top notch Mac developer, I can report with first hand knowledge that Keith is very patient, especially when dealing with nerdy zealots who pepper him with requests to sync Scrivener text files to the iPad.

So Keith, show us your iPad home screen.

What are your most interesting home screen apps?

Everything there is fairly well-known, but Kineo is one of the apps I had the most fun with when I first got my iPad. It’s a really simple concept but stupidly fun. It’s just a flip-book app – you draw a stick man or whatever with your finger, then create a new page, and your last image is still faintly visible so that you can draw the next one over it, moving it slightly, and so doing gradually build up an animation. It’s full of blood and violence since my kids got at it, but it provides a great wind-down activity while you’re waiting for something.

In terms of my day job, there are several apps there that are interesting. Simplenote, Notebooks and PlainText are all great note-taking tools and Index Card provides a really nice corkboard similar to the one in Scrivener, so they are all there in part because I spent a lot of time implementing sync features in Scrivener 2.0 that works with these programs, enabling users to sync text between Scrivener and any one of these apps. So they are there partly for testing purposes and partly because I use them for note-taking occasionally myself. Likewise iBooks and Kindle – these are there for testing Scrivener’s .epub and .mobi export, but I don’t use them much beyond that, to be honest, as I prefer my actual Kindle (or a real, analogue book of course) for extended reading.

What is your favorite app?

Probably IMDb, simply because I’m addicted to it. I can’t remember the last time I watched a TV program or movie without pausing it to look up an actor. I still tend to reach for my MacBook Air and look up things on there for speed of typing, but IMDb on the iPad is beautifully designed and a perfect coffee-table app.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

At the moment it’s Angry Birds. I finally cracked and downloaded it for the first time the other day, and since then the house has been full of the sound of grunting, whooping, kamikaze birds. You know you’ve been playing it too much when you start calculating the angle of your hand when you go to throw something to somebody and then wonder why there’s nothing to tap to make it go faster when it’s in midair. Before that I was addicted for a short while to Bed Bugs – I got my mother addicted to that, too; I probably won’t hear from her for months after I introduce her to Angry Birds.

What is the app you are still missing?

I don’t think I’m missing anything – there are a gazillion apps already out there and I don’t use my iPad enough to feel it wanting anything, really. The obvious answer, of course, would be Scrivener, as we do get a good few requests for an iPad version, but I still much prefer writing on my MacBook Air or other Macs so I can’t get as excited about the prospect as I probably should.

How many times a day do you use your iPad?

My current addiction to Angry Birds notwithstanding, in general I have to admit I don’t use my iPad very much at all. By day I do my development work on a Mac Pro and in the evenings I have my MacBook Air at hand, so I haven’t found an obvious place for the iPad in my daily life as many people have. My kids, on the other hand – I can’t keep them off the thing.

What is your favorite feature of the Pad?

It keeps the kids quiet. (Actually that’s not even true; they fight over it.)

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

That one’s easy – I’d add a rich text system that developers could utilize, an equivalent of the NSText system on the Mac. At the moment most writing apps on the iPad are plain text only, and this is because there is no easy way to create rich text editing apps (Apple rolled their own text system with Pages that isn’t available to third-party developers). I have seen some apps roll their own basic rich text systems – Docs2Go for instance – but if there was a standard one as there is on the Mac, there would be a lot more powerful writing tools on there – and, from a completely biased point of view, it would make it easier to sync Scrivener with apps on the iPad. It would also make it a little easier for us to design a stripped-down version of Scrivener for the iPad off in one potential future, too, of course. But that’s my day-job speaking again, as I’m probably unlikely to use the iPad for writing much myself; I just know a lot of our customers use it for note-taking and that this would be useful to them.

Anything else you’d like to share?

Just a thank you for inviting me to share my home screen.

Thanks Keith!

This week I’m pleased to feature Joseph Nilo (twitter), one of the pioneers of Mac podcasting and a very talented video and audio production guy who co-founded HiLo Media. After having a multiple year e-lationship, I finally got to meet Joseph in person this year at Macworld and I was so pleased that he agreed to share his home screen. So Joseph, show us your home screen.

What are your most interesting home screen apps?

My preferred home screen apps are pretty standard-issue. My least recognizable are certainly DP Control, which is a controller for my audio production software Digital Performer, and Authenticator, which allows me to securely log into my World of Warcraft account.

Additionally I really like Flickpad Pro, which is an ingenious way to view my friend’s Facebook and Flickr photos.
I do have to mention that, for the sake of this post, I had to pull my most-accessed apps out of their respective folders to make it more interesting. I like a clutter-free home page with folders. The dock holds my six most-accessed apps and I use the Spotlight search or just muscle memory to find the rest.

What is your favorite app?

I certainly spend the most time in River of News and [Instapaper]. My last hour before bed at night is spent going through RSS feeds and saving interesting stuff to Instapaper for later reading.
Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Authenticator represents my real-life guilty pleasure: World of Warcraft (I can stop whenever I want to, I swear!). My favorite time-killer is Monopoly HD.
How many times a day do you use your iPad?

I use my iPad quite often. It sits in my edit suite with me (along with a Mac Pro with three displays and a MacBook pro, it certainly is excessive).

The iPad gets used (for work) mostly as a script reader— I keep the script for whatever video I’m editing live on my iPad for quick access. Additionally it comes with me into the voiceover booth as I’ve long-abandoned printing out scripts for the sake of being green. And hating printers.

The tools I use for managing all my work stuff: Dropbox, Evernote, Simplenote, Things, and a Safari link to Google Docs. Plus I prefer the Gmail interface in Safari to the iPad’s Mail app.
And then my iPad becomes a part of my nightly ritual of reading in bed.

What is your favorite feature of the iPad?

Usability. I am constantly amazed that Apple has designed a product that my four-year-old has an almost disturbing mastery of. If she needs to be occupied for a time at a restaurant or on a plane or in the car, I feel better about her interacting and problem-solving in her favorite apps then having just parked her in front of a movie for a couple hours.

Thanks Joseph.

This week’s Home Screen post features Timeline 3D developer Adam Behringer (twitter). Adam’s company, BeeDocs, makes the best timeline application available on any platform and I have used it to vex and harass opposing counsel many-a-time. I’ve been fortunate to get to know Adam over the years and in addition to his XCode prowess, Adam is a musician and very nice person.

So Adam, show us your iPad home screen.

What are your most interesting home screen apps?

My iPad dock is a well considered space that I only put my most frequently used applications. Most of those are ones that I could have predicted before I purchased an iPad. However, I wouldn’t have expected that the IMDb app would end up there.
I’ve always liked the IMDb.com website, but I use it much more frequently and in a different way on the iPad. Specifically, I find myself using it a lot while I am watching movies in our home theater. My wife and I are always asking questions like “where have I seen that actor before?” and “this movie has a unique look, I wonder if this is the same cinematographer as …” Now we’ve got those answers at our fingertips.

What is your favorite app?

Reeder, for sure. For the past several years, I have checked my news feed reader as often as checking my e-mail on my Mac. However, the experience on the iPad is way better than a computer.
The fact that I can catch up with about 30 of my favorite websites in about 5 min before getting out of bed in the morning is great. I no longer read news feeds on my computer any more. I’d rather be sitting in my living room to read content than at my desk. If someone reading this interview doesn’t know how an good news reader application can improve their life, they should really try one out. There is no going back.

Twitterific, Instapaper, and Mail are all runner-up favorites for the similar reasons. All exhibit functionality that is a much better experience once it is no longer tied to a desk.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Well, I love looking up classic Muppets clips with my kids on the YouTube app. Definitely check out the Robert De Nirro interview with Elmo.
What is the app you are still missing?

I think the MLB app looks pretty awesome, but I’m not a baseball fan. I wish there was something similar for college football. An app that supplements the experience of watching a game in person or listening to it on the radio would be awesome.

I’d also like to see more apps that connect me to charity and justice organizations in real-time. I think the age of generalized quarterly newsletters for donors are over. I want details!

Can you imagine a mashup between Kickstarter and Red Cross? Something like “here are some real-time photos of a specific building that was destroyed by an earthquake. It will cost $200,000 and 30 volunteers to rebuild it. Contribute your time and or your money by clicking a button. As soon as we reach our goal, you will get real time updates and photos of it being built along with a video interviews from locals.”

Everyone loved watching those Chilean minors being rescued this past year. Though it may be at a smaller scale, there is stuff like that happening all over the world every day and I want to be a part of it. Seems like the iPad / iPhone could facilitate these kinds of interactions both on the reporting end and the benefactor end.

Great idea Adam.

How many times a day do you use your iPad?

I sit in front of my PowerMac all day when I am working… But, I use my iPad first thing in the morning to check my mail and news. I use the iPad in the kitchen to listen to Pandora while I’m cooking. I take it with me (instead of a laptop) when I travel. I always have it on a side table when I am reading or watching movies.

It is basically my computer for everywhere other than my desk. I probably fire it up 20-30 times each day.

What is your favorite feature of the iPad?

Without question, the battery life is my favorite feature of the iPad. Also, the fact that it never heats up. Those two things really give it a feeling of a household object and let you forget that it is high technology.

Back in the day, I owned a Palm V that had a battery life that could make you feel like you never had to worry about it. The iPod shuffle too… I forget if I have -ever- charged it, it seems to so long ago.

To me, it is essential that a portable device has a ridiculously long battery life. If I pick it up and it won’t turn on, I’ll get annoyed and will eventually stop picking it up. Whenever an “iPad killer” is announced, I always look for the battery life specs first. If it doesn’t have 10 hours of battery life, then the software, the keyboard, the apps, and other factors just don’t matter in my opinion. It won’t be a better choice than the iPad if it isn’t ready to go every time you pick it up.

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

If I was in charge … I would try to figure out how to make the iPad more holdable. By that I mean holding it with one hand, using it while standing, and using it while laying down. It probably needs to weigh less, and be less slippery somehow. I am very tempted by the new Kindle just because it seems like a much easier to hold in those situations where you aren’t sitting in a chair.

I also can’t wait for a retina display on the iPad (but wouldn’t give up battery life for it). And, while I am dreaming, I would somehow make it so that fingerprints never show up on the glass.

Thanks Adam!

Full disclosure: Adam’s company, BeeDocs is the current sponsor of MacSparky.com. This fact, however, has nothing to do why Adam is featured here. Adam, like all other Home Screen posters, is featured here because he is awesome.

Brett Terpstra (twitter) is my kind of nerd. He is an ingenious programmer that makes useful stuff all day (like nvALT and InstapaperBeyond). In my mind, Brett is like some benevolent mad scientist who takes things I love (like TextExpander and Notational Velocity) and starts bolting on exgra limbs. Most recently Brett made a Web site, markdownrules, that looks at a URL and spits back a markdown file. I had the pleasure of making friends with Brett at Macworld this year and am happy to report that, in addition to his coding prowess, Brett is a stand up guy. If you haven’t already, keep an eye on Brett because you just never know what he’ll do next.

So Brett, show us your homescreen.

What are your most interesting home screen apps?

• DuckDuckGo, the official app for the DuckDuckGo search engine, which is also brilliant, but I won’t go into that
• 1Password is essential to me (full disclosure: I work for Agile Web Solutions)
• PlaySafe is the simplest, best-looking touch controller for music, and I use it every time I’m in my car
• Camera Plus Pro is pretty spectacular so far. I just discovered it at Macworld this year, and I’m still breaking it in.

The apps on my iPhone’s home screen are, by and large, not my most exciting apps. They’re mostly workhorses. I’m going to stick with my iPhone for this chat, but I should mention that I’ve found that my iPhone and my iPad have very different apps on their home screen. Each device is better suited to certain environments and types of apps (I actually have games on the home screen of my iPad).

What gets an app onto your iPhone home screen?

It’s a pretty simple system. Apps on the home screen are ones that are either frequently used, or ones that I want fast access to. Shazam is an example of the latter. I don’t use it that often, but when I need it I usually don’t have time for a lot of tapping around. This is doubly true of the Dock, where QuickCal, Flashlight and Camera Plus Pro live. All three are useless if I miss an opportunity (or run into a door) while fumbling for them.

What is your favorite app?

It seems to change at least monthly. I’m fickle. Right now, I’m really loving Trunk Notes and Nebulous Notes (on both iPhone and iPad). Trunk Notes because it gives me a wiki that I can edit, search and browse on my iPhone, iPad and through any web browser, and because it syncs to Dropbox where I can edit in TextMate (and navigate using the Plain Text Wiki bundle), preview in Quick Look and search with Spotlight. Interoperability with my OS X workflow remains a major factor for me, though I’d love to someday be computing entirely on a more mobile platform. Anyway, Trunk Notes is also Markdown-based, and nothing in my geek world really makes me happier than Markdown.

Markdown is also the reason I like Nebulous. It doesn’t bill itself as a Markdown editor, but its ability to run user-defined Macros (including wrapping selected text) is perfect for that. Selecting text and pressing a button to have it wrapped in square brackets followed by a pair of parenthesis? Priceless.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Infinity Blade.

What is the app you are still missing?

I’m an obsessive collector of note-taking apps. To a fault. I’m still looking for the perfect capture tool that has it all in one, but I don’t really know what that would look like, or if I’d like it when I saw it. I like mind mapping, I like using text recognition in photos, and I love plain text notes. Honestly, though, I don’t think I’d love an app that did all of that at once. I just don’t see how it could be good at any of them if it tried to do all of them.

Answering this question actually makes me realize I have everything I want right now, albeit in separate apps. Good deal, though, I get to be surprised when some new and indispensable app drops into my life.

How many times a day do you use your iPhone?

It depends on the day. I use it every day, but some days it’s an alarm clock and an MP3 player (and a flashlight if I go to bed later than my wife). Some days it’s my GPS system, my note and task capture tool, my news, my leisure, my expense and time tracker and my connection to other people. On those days, I probably pull it out of my pocket a hundred times. But who’s counting?

Well, I guess my wife is, at least when we’re eating out with friends.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone?

I think the feature that fascinates me the most is motion sensitivity with the accelerometer and gyroscope. It’s more because of the possibilities than because of any current implementation. It’s added an aspect to everyday app development that’s beginning to change the language of interface design. A few apps have made great use of it, even with the simplest of gestures (I fondly recall the first time I used it in Instapaper). Some apps make a mockery of it, but I think we’ll see more innovative (and appropriate) uses as time goes on. Can we quit with the shake-to-undo thing, though? It’s pretty asinine, even when it works properly.

Anything else you’d like to share?

You ask a dangerous question, my friend. I could probably talk an hour each about every app on my iPhone. For everybody’s sake, I’ll stop there.

Thanks Brett!

By far, the best dividends from my activity in the Apple community are the friendships I make. Last year, I became pals with Merlin Mann. (twitter) Merlin (a hotel-room-trashing caliber Internet rock star) is a busy guy and, as a result, doesn’t come off as exactly cuddly. The truth is, however, that Merlin is warm, fuzzy, and compassionate. Not only that, he’s on his own personal crusade to straighten out knowledge workers all around the world. Since Merlin is busy finishing his book, he just gave me his home screen shots and folders. So let’s tuck in.

Birdhouse,
Calvetica,
GoodReader,
Reeder,
Wikipanion Plus,
Instapaper,
Google Voice, and
Nebulous (which I covered here).

JotAgent,
Simplenote,
PlainText,
Elements,
Due, and
now do this.

Siri,
Outliner,
Markdown Mail,
Pro HDR,
iThoughts, and
Tumblr Me.

I normally limit these posts to just the home screen. However, I couldn’t help but also include Merlin’s last screen. Inbox Zero indeed.

Thanks Merlin.