Some of my favorite home screens come from MacSparky readers. Dr. Barrett Mosbacker is one of those. So Barrett, show us your home screen.

What are some of your favorite apps?

For managing my personal and professional life my favorite apps are Spark, Fantastical, Things 3, GoodNotes, and DEVONthink. Spark and Fantastical are powerful but easy to use applications for managing my email and events. After being a long time OmniFocus Pro user I recently made the switch to Things 3. Both are exemplary apps for managing projects but I ultimately moved to Things 3 because I found myself spending less time fiddling with the application and more time getting work done. Things 3 is also an exquisitely designed app that is a pleasure to use.

I have been looking for the Holy Grail of applications for managing and integrating project and meeting notes, documents, and research. I finally found them in GoodNotes and DEVONthink. GoodNotes gives me the ability to use my iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil to take meeting notes in an unobtrusive manner. Because GoodNotes has accurate handwriting recognition (even for my horrible penmanship) I can export my meeting notes to DEVONthink. Later when I need to find these notes I can search for them in DEVONthink. I switched to DEVONthink after being a long time Evernote Business user. Although DEVONthink takes time to learn, its powerful features and integrated mobile app make it the ideal repository for all of my personal and professional notes, documents, and research.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

I’m feeling a little guilty for saying so, but I don’t have one. Virtually all of my iPhone and iPad applications are for getting things done. The closest I come to a guilty pleasure is the Kindle app for my professional and pleasure reading. I may need to get a life! 🙂

What app makes you most productive?

Things 3. I manage a large number of complex projects involving my Senior Leadership Team as well as mundane personal tasks like reminding me to take the trash to the curb. For my purposes, Things 3 has the right balance of power, flexibility, and elegant GUI.

What app do you know you’re underutilizing?

I am probably underutilizing MindNode. I do a lot of writing and speaking. Scrivener is my go to application for all writing—from short blog articles to essays and book projects. I also use it for drafting my speaking notes. I find myself vacillating between using MindNode and OmniOutliner when drafting my thoughts and outlines for writing or speaking projects. I would default more often to MindNode if it had true Apple Pencil support.

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

I use my iPhone approximately once an hour through out the day beginning at 4:30am when its alarm goes off. I use the iPad all day throughout the day. I have Things 3 open on the iPad, which sits next to my MacBook Pro. This keeps my to-do list constantly in front of me so that I focus on what is most important. I grab the iPad and Apple Pencil whenever I have a meeting. I take my handwritten notes in GoodNotes and then export them to DEVONthink for future reference. Any to-do items arising from the meeting go into Things 3.

What Today View widgets are you using and why?

I use the Fantastical, Things 3, AccuWeather, The Calculator, and Deliveries widgets.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

It is difficult to identify favorite features but I suppose on the iPhone it would be the dictation application. I cannot type quickly and accurately using the on screen keyboard on the iPhone X so I rely heavily on dictation. Apple Pencil support is my favorite feature of the iPad Pro. I use it for taking notes, annotating PDFs, and jotting down ideas.

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

I would enhance iCloud to have the feature sets of both DropBox and Google Docs and I would substantially increase the total free space available to iCloud, or at least substantially increase the space available at each price tier. I would like to make iCloud my default application for storing and sharing documents and collaboration. The way things stand now, I use iCloud to sync across my devices, DropBox for sharing documents with others, and Google Docs when I need robust collaboration. I would also substantially enhance the capability of Siri. Apple lead in this space but has since fallen behind Google and Amazon.

Do you have an Apple Watch? Show us your watch face tell us about it.

I have a Series 2 Apple watch. I use the Siri watch face as my default but I also use the Activity Face for my morning workout and for tracking my physical activity throughout the day.

What’s your wallpaper and why?

I use a solid black wallpaper on my iPhone because it makes the app icons stand out without distraction. On my iPad I use a beautiful fall picture of the Saint Louis Gateway Arch National Park.

Thanks Barrett.

This week’s home screen features Jeff Perry (Twitter), proprietor of TabletHabit.com where Jeff talk about how he uses his iPad as his exclusive computer. Jeff’s a busy guy, also producing his podcast, Getting Caught Up. So Jeff, show us your home screen.

What are some of your favorite apps?

Ulysses is my primary app I use day-to-day as I write a blog and Ulysses is hands down the best writing app for bloggers in my opinion. 

I am also a big fan of Gladys as a shelf app on the iPad. It quickly turned into a utility app I use a lot when I have to save photos, links, and pretty much anything else from one app and I drag and drop them into Ulysses or into WordPress itself. 

Calendars 5 is my main calendar and task management app of choice (it’s a long story and something I think I might write about). It has some quirks but it is a beautiful app with a high-functioning UI and works great.

Finally, I use Blink a lot to help get affiliate links for posts on my blog. I don’t have any sponsors or advertisements on my blog so the only source of revenue on there currently is affiliate links. I don’t make much but it helps keeps the lights on for the website. 

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Apollo. I joined reddit almost 10 years ago now and it has changed a lot in that time frame, mostly for the worst in my opinion. I still frequent Reddit but every time I do I feel like there could be something better with my time. Apollo as an app though is by far the best reddit app I have ever used, and the 10 years worth of apps I have used quite a few of them.

What app makes you most productive?

In terms of content creation it is Ulysses, in terms of managing my day-to-day tasks and keeping on track it would be Calendars 5.

Ulysses is a powerful text editing tool and by far the best writing app on iOS in my opinion. I write everything in Markdown and when I am writing to share something with other I use Ulysses 90% of the time. 

Calendars 5 is a new addition to my devices. I was a big user of Fantastical 2 on iOS but the agenda view wasn’t what I wanted when I looked at my calendar. I know a lot of people like it but for me I like to see my time in blocks and Calendars 5 offers the natural language addition with beautiful UI and Reminders integration. The only big difference is that it shows things in the traditional calendar format and I like that. 

What app do you know you’re underutilizing?

Ulysses. I know there’s so much more I can do with this thing but for me it is just a very well performing markdown machine that integrates with WordPress for publishing articles. 

I’m sure there’s something I’m missing when it comes to what I can do to make my writing more efficient and I hope to learn more about the app soon. I purchased Shawn Blanc’s Ulysses Course but I haven’t gotten around to it yet, but it’s on my list of things to do in the new year. 

What is the app you are still missing?

I’m currently not using any dedicated task manager. I have tried everything under the sun and haven’t found anything that works the way I want it to. In a perfect world I would take the natural language Todoist has, the features OmniFocus has, and the design of Things 3 and have them fuse together to make the perfect app for me. Because of this, I have actually moved my big picture plans and goals into a bullet journal and my daily tasks into Calendars 5 with their Reminders Integration. 

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

I use my iPad as my main computer so whenever I need to do work I use that, my iPhone is there mainly as a way to send Bluetooth media to my AirPods and check Twitter in my downtime. But when I’m in a pinch I will write my thoughts and outlines into my iPhone to get it out of my head and then deal with it later. 

I usually am on my iPad working on Tablet Habit or my Podcast Getting Caught Up from when I get up at 10 am (I work my day job until midnight so I don’t get to bed until 2 am or so) until I leave for work at 2:30 pm. From there I bring my iPad with me to work for downtime during lunch to continue working on stuff. 

What Today View widgets are you using and why?

Workflow – One of the biggest things I want to start doing in 2018 is to track my time more and I found some modified workflows from Federico Viticci’s post that work quite well for me. So I signed up for Toggl and set up the workflows and so far it is working quite well. Instead of having these workflows as an icon on my home screen or take up space in my dock I have it as a widget to quickly start and stop timers for the work I am doing. 

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

I’m sure I’m not the first person to say this but iOS 11 adding Drag and Drop to the iPad (and iPhone to some extent) has been an absolute dream. Especially with shelf apps like Gladys and Yoink coming into the picture. Those two things have killed several workflows I had previously because it is just a delight to use this feature and these apps with synergy that wasn’t on iOS before. 

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

I would have a bigger team in the Podcast department. From what I understand there is a very small team handling the entire podcast library and with Apple still having a huge stake in the game for podcasts I think a bigger team is necessary. There are a ton of companies and 3rd part hosting services trying to bridge the gap between host and platform but I think Podcasting needs to have more from Apple. It seems like this is something that is taking place currently with the beta of podcasting stats from Apple being implemented recently, so if they can keep that momentum I think we will see more from them in the coming years.

Do you have an Apple Watch? Show us your watch face tell us about it.

My Apple Watch face is the modular face. I know a lot of people aren’t big fans of it but I use my watch to keep track of what I have going on and the modular watch face allows me to have my “terminal” on my wrist. 

I have the date and time on the top, because it is a watch after all. 

Reminders takes the bulk of my screen because I am using Reminders within Calendars 5 as my day-to-day task manager

The bottom three icons are messages, which is to check when family and my fiancé get a hold of me, Battery life (mainly because I have a Series 1 and it isn’t great on battery life. Finally I have a timer. I find myself setting timers for pretty much everything from work time-blocking, laundry, my lunch hour at my day job, everything and being able to quickly set a timer on my wrist is more convenient than my phone. 

What’s your wallpaper and why?

iPhone – Cortex because it is my favorite background I have found that grids out each app without being intrusive. 

Anything else you’d like to share?

I have began to take on a minimalists perspective when it comes to a lot of aspects in my life, one being what I keep on my iPad and iPhone. Every single app I have on my devices is deliberate and with purpose. There are no games on it (I have a PS4 for that), and I purge unused apps regularly to keep a tight ship. 

I also just want to let anyone reading that I write about this stuff and how you can use an iPad as a main computer on my blog at TabletHabit.com and on a podcast called Getting Caught Up. I am active on Twitter and you follow me at @iamJeffPerry.

Finally I just want to thank you, David, for being an inspiration for me to start doing Tablet Habit!

Thanks, Jeff.

One of the great things about living in Southern California is all the local nerds I get to hang out with. One such new friend I made this year is Daman Rangoola (Twitter). Daman is a clever guy and put a lot of time into his home screen. So Daman, let’s see it.

What are some of your favorite apps?

I find almost everything on my home screen to be invaluable on a day to day basis, but the two that stand out are Downcast and Tweetbot. I also have Overcast, which I find to be a great app in it’s own right, but after spending so much time tweaking my settings in Downcast and having the app work great for me – I haven’t felt the need to totally make the switch. 

Twitter is somewhere I find myself all day whether it’s for monitoring the news (in tech and otherwise) during the day and then diving into the glorious world known as “NBA Twitter” – following along with all the basketball games with a phenomenal community of basketball diehards. Tweetbot has consistently proven to be the best Twitter client for my usage but due to Twitter’s API limitations for third-party apps, I also use the stock Twitter client frequently, thus it also lives on my home screen.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

I would say Tweetbot but I can conjure up enough professional purpose to open it to not feel as guilty about it, so I’m going to say Threes. It’s still the best game I’ve ever played on the iPhone – it’s the only game I downloaded and have never removed from my iPhone. It’s challenging, fun, and most importantly – I can play for 2 minutes or one hour and it doesn’t require constant attention. 

What app makes you most productive? 

Strictly speaking, Asana. Slack is vital to my work but I get most of my daily tasks done in Asana and having an on-the-go view of everything I’m working on has been a great addition to my workflow. If I’m away from my desk but an idea hits me or I am talking to somebody and a task presents itself, I can quickly add it into Asana and lose the burden of worrying that I will forget something. 

What app do you know you’re underutilizing?

This will be of particular interest to the owner of this website: Workflow. I know I can make great use of this app, and I know how powerful of an app that it is, I just haven’t put in the proper time and effort into getting the app working for me in that way yet. 

What is the app you are still missing? 

WhatsApp for iPad, please! WhatsApp has become the go-to communication method for my family (locally and abroad) and for several groups of friends, and it has no iPad client yet.

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

Constantly. If I’m not reading something on my iPhone, I have my iPad open next to my Mac at all times for work with the Notes app open with my Pencil charged, jotting notes all day. There is virtually no part of my waking hours that I’m not actively or passively (listening to podcasts etc) using either of my iOS devices.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

The ecosystem. There are a lot of reasons to individually love my iPhone X and the 10.5” iPad Pro, but the way they work together is my favorite single feature of iOS.

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

I think it’s time to allow for default apps for major app categories to be changed. I wouldn’t do it like Android, I would make it very difficult to qualify to become a default. I would create a new App Review system for becoming a default, ensuring a good experience for the user. 

Two of the biggest examples that would be great for me? Allowing Google Maps to become the default Maps option and allowing Downcast or Overcast become my default podcast player. There are more categories out there that could qualify (like Internet browser) but those two would be game changers for me.

Do you have an Apple Watch? Show us your watch face tell us about it.

I use my Apple Watch for the following: seeing the time, monitoring my activity, monitoring my notifications, and Apple Pay. I have never been interested in apps on the Watch, even though they are greatly improved, simply because it’s not what I’m personally looking to get out of it.

The bottom complication is what I refer to as “Mean Boss Time” – my boss is rarely in the same time-zone as me, so it’s important for me to know what time it is for him (and he’s sick of me asking lol). 

I swipe right to the Activity Analog face when I’m going to the gym or doing any other workout to track my activity in a focused way. 

What’s your wallpaper and why?

I am absolutely in love with the new OLED display of the iPhone X and to get the full effect out of it, I changed my background to be pure black, which is stunning especially in comparison to non-OLED displays. Similarly, I have changed my home screen background to accentuate the stunning black:

It’s just gorgeous!

Anything else?

I have a no folder policy on the home screen of my iPhone. There was a time where I put everything in folders to only have one total page for all my apps, but I enjoy having the ability to see everything clearly and every app on my home screen being one press away. If I need to launch any other apps, I enjoy using Spotlight most of the time.

Thanks Daman

Dan Catlin (Twitter)(Website) is an interesting guy. He had a fancy pants job that required him to do lots of traveling but one day realized his kids were growing up and he was never around. So he gave up the fancy job and opened his own business making candles so he could have more time to be “dad”. MiddleDavids is a sometimes sponsor of this blog and over the years I’ve come to know and respect Dan as a friend and fellow nerd. So Dan, show us your home screen.

I’m a one page guy with page two overflow pretty much only holding new apps I haven’t decided if I want to keep yet. My top row is folders that I usually access via pull down from top and search, although occasionally I’ll navigate them old school. My second row is mostly media – I find that I tend to pick something to listen to and let it go, so I don’t really need one handed access too often.

My third row is mostly there because usually I’m thinking about going for a bike ride and the weather, routes/buddies, wind are useful, but just seeing them makes me happy.

The closer you get to the bottom, the more I’m thinking about using them on the fly, with one hand. Row four is calculators, my calendar and Waze, which is an annoying data hog in many ways, but seems to be the best in my area at getting traffic right, so it earns its place until Apple Maps catches them. The bottom two rows and dock are things I want to open quickly, often with one hand.

Favorite Apps:

Braintoss – strangely simple way to get stuff into my GTD system. Tap it (or say, “Hey Siri, open Braintoss,” then either record a voice memo, take a picture or (rarely) type something in. Then it emails me with the item. I’m much better at getting things into my system from email than all the other ways things come at me, so this helps a lot.

Strava – I was an early adopter about six years ago, and have been logging my bike rides, almost 30,000 miles of them, ever since. Has social media components (kudos, comments), but mostly it’s a way to keep track, set goals, follow friends and find new routes, etc. 

Soulver – Although I use pCalc for simple one-off math and love the Reverse-Polish notation option there, Soulver plus TextExpander is my secret sauce. I’ve built several fill-in formulas that really take it to the next level. Example – making a custom batch of candles in an odd amount of wax. On my Mac, I open Soulver, type ‘xbatch’ and a fill in snippet asks me for the amount of wax I’m making, the % of fragrance strength I want to make, and the magical “pop” gives me the exact amount of fragrance needed for the batch. Because the iPhone is more limited, I just keep a batch calculation worksheet in the list and can edit quickly. And because Soulver ‘shows your work,’ you can double check and live the old adage, “measure twice, cut once!” It’s really pretty slick!

I’m a data nerd. I love the Activity App that lets me worry about filling in my rings each day, Pedometer for steps tracking, and love-to-hate LoseIt, for calorie tracking. It’s the simplest and least cluttered way for me to manage portion control, and once I’ve built in most of our family recipes, it’s pretty easy to log and keep myself honest.

My phone is almost always adding sound to my world, whether through Audible books, Overcast podcasts, or my 80’s Rock ’n Roll dominated music collection, so those are favorites, too. 

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Through the Ages – an iOS adaptation of my favorite strategy BoardGame that I always have a game going with three of my friends. Only get to take a turn or two each day, but enjoy them! Ascension is another game I usually have a few games going with friends – I like turn based games that I can jump on once or twice a day and think about the people I’m playing with as much as the game itself.

What app makes you most productive? 

Braintoss and Drafts (plus Due) for smaller ToDo’s. Braintoss helps me capture, Drafts is where most ideas/messages, etc. start (and sometimes stay – I have lots of notes there that I keep running like reading lists, quotes, etc.), Due is where things go that have to be done at a set time since it will annoy me until I do them!

OmniFocus for projects with lots of moving parts or that bear repeating. Today I have am embarrassing 87 things to do, but that’s a little silly because all of my month end tasks are ‘available’ at the moment, many of which are multi-step like payroll and sales tax for our small business, using a monthly repeating project keeps me from forgetting a step, which helps a ton.

What app do you know you’re underutilizing?

OmniFocus. Although it is a wonderful tool that I use faithfully for larger projects, I wish I was better at getting more of the ‘cruft’ into it so that I could have a single task management solution. Still working on that.

What is the app you are still missing?

I’d love to have a sort of DayOne alternative that kind of interviewed me at the end of the day, captured maybe my location data, and had elements of ‘streaks’ or activity ‘hooks’ and even completed ToDo’s in it so that you could sort of build a single view of what that day was like. One of my goals for next year is to see if I can hack DayOne to do that with some TextExpander snippets and screenshots.

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

I use my iPhone almost constantly in the background (tracking steps, podcasts, music) and actively several times an hour.

What Today View widgets are you using and why?

I haven’t really adopted many of them. Sometimes use Find Friends when coordinating kid pickup, etc, but that’s something I could probably do better.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

The fact that it really is a computer that I always have with me and is truly acting as a ‘second brain’ for much of my life. Having a camera, voice recorder, and supplemental memory at all times is really pretty awesome. (I haven’t fallen in love with the iPad yet – I’m a piano player and fast touch typist and if I have to do more than a little typing, I run for my Mac.)

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

We’re pretty ‘all in’ with the Apple ecosystem. My wife and I have three daughters, and our family has a Mac Mini, four MacBooks, two iPads, five iPhones, a bunch of iPods, some of which still get used, two Apple Watches, and the new Apple TV. We love how well they interact. Probably our one complaint is that we’re always out of storage and not in love with the Cloud yet. I’d love it if onboard storage was a little more modular/granular and maybe a little less expensive – it’s p
robably the one thing that leads to frustration.

Do you have an Apple Watch? Show us your watch face tell us about it.

I got it for my birthday this past June, and really like it. Messages on my wrist and the fitness stuff are the primary uses (and just telling time on my wrist again rather than from my pocket)!

I wore an analog watch for years and love the way it makes me think in ‘quarters of hours’ rather than digital minutes. My complications are all fitness focused – Pedometer

What’s your wallpaper and why?

My Lock Screen wallpaper is our family crest that a friend made from a sketch. My wife and I both graduated from the Naval Academy at Annapolis, hence the anchor with ’89 (the year we were married), and our family slogan, “We do hard things the hard way.” Kind of a joke but also reminds us that worthwhile things are usually not easy, and often it’s the journey that matters far more than the destination. My app wallpaper is just plain in my favorite sort of dark indigo color that makes the apps ‘pop’ so my rotten eyes can see them!

Anything else you’d like to share?

Thanks! I’m humbled to be considered since so many of the tips and techniques I’ve developed have come from hours spent listening to MPU and reading the MacSparky blog and books. If anything I’ve said is good, you deserve a lot of the credit; if not, I’m still learning!

Thanks Dan.

This week’s home screen features Kent Sutherland (website)(Twitter). Kent is part of the Flexibits team and a pretty busy guy. Now that Kent has shipped the latest update to Fantastical and a brand new contact app, Cardhop, I asked Ken to share his home screen. So Ken, show us your home screen.

What are some of your favorite apps?

Reeder is one of my favorite apps that also gets used all the time. I’m one of those weird people that still loves RSS feeds and uses them all the time. I also enjoy Words With Friends because it lets me distract myself occasionally and keep in touch with friends that I wouldn’t otherwise talk to as often. Pinner is used frequently so I can pull up saved recipies when I’m at the grocery store or when I’m cooking. For built-in apps, the Podcasts app gets used a lot although I’m not a fan of what happened to it with iOS 11 (it might be time to explore alternatives). Finally, it’s not on my home screen, but I don’t know how I’d type on my phone without Gboard.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Reddit, because it lets me look at stupid images and videos while I’m waiting for a bus or in line somewhere.

What app makes you most productive?

I’ve found my phone doesn’t really help make me productive, as getting real work done requires my Mac. Slack at least helps me keep track of our build system and any issues that might come up when I’m away from a computer though. Judging from my home screen, my phone is frequently used for communication (Viber, Facebook Messenger, Messages, Slack, and Words With Friends are all used for text messaging).

What app do you know you’re underutilizing?

I should probably be using Pocket more often. I’d be a bit more efficient if I deferred reading for later, but I’ve gotten out of the habit.

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

Who knows, but probably more than I’d expect. To try to minimize that number I often keep my phone on do not disturb while I’m at my computer, which helps to reduce the chance that I’ll get distracted by push notifications.

What Today View widgets are you using and why?

Fantastical in the expanded month view and Weather Underground. I’m pretty light on widgets, but I get regular use out of both of those. There’s only really room to see a couple of widgets at once, and I found I never used the others if I had to scroll down to get to them.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

My favorite little feature on the iPhone is the 3D Touch gesture to switch apps. I was distraught when they removed it from iOS 11, and I was very happy with they said it was coming back.

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

In terms of iOS, I’d make iOS faster to use. The iPhone and iPad are fast computers now, but that speed is often locked behind all of the animations and gestures. For example, switching between two apps takes a second or two for the app switcher animation, then another to tap on another app and wait for it to appear. In my perfect world there would be an option to disable all of the unlock and app transition animations. I’ve used iOS enough to know exactly where on the screen everything is going to appear, and if I could tap without delay the time savings would add up quickly.

Do you have an Apple Watch? Show us your watch face tell us about it.

My watch it spends most of its life on the charger, as I’m not much of a watch person. It does get used to test Fantastical’s watch app and complications, and the timer occasionally comes in handy when I’m doing laundry.

What’s your wallpaper and why?

My wallpaper is one of the cloud and star pictures from a previous version of iOS that has long since been removed. My lock screen is a picture of a jellyfish that I took in a zoo. I set it a long time ago and it seems to have just stuck.

Thanks Kent … and great work with Cardhop!

Chuck Joiner’s with his Mac Voices podcast (website)(Twitter) is the James Lipton of our Mac community. He’s been delivering great content for years and today he agreed to share his home screen. Okay Chuck, show us your home screen.

What are Some of Your Favorite Apps?

Downcast for sure. It takes care of keeping all my podcasts downloaded and synced between my iPads, iPhone and Macs so that I can listen or watch to any of them any time, without having to spend time managing what is where. The capability of having custom speeds for each show subscribed to is also important, since some can be consumed easily at 2.5x, while others may only be listenable at 1.5x. My perception is that the algorithm for accelerated listening has improved over time, and the addition of an Apple Watch app puts the audio controls on my wrist if the phone is in my pocket. 

Feedly also ranks high because I still use RSS feeds as a major part of my information flow. There are prettier feed-reading apps out there, but Feedly does what I want it to do in a no-nonsense format.

Camera+ is my go-to camera app because of its RAW shooting capabilities, and the best one-touch photo enhancement I’ve seen, though the new Photos in iOS 11 is making me re-think that. Lots of power in this one, but there is a bit of a learning curve to take advantage of all the features.

FiLMiC Pro is a favorite for its versatility and power as a video recording app. If you can’t capture the video you want with this app, then you can’t do it on an iPhone.

What app makes you most productive?

At this point, Apple’s Notes, because it lets my iPhone be an extension of my Mac in making and keeping information, project lists, and other items organized and in sync everywhere. Was using another solution before, but Notes makes it super easy.

What app do you know you’re underutilizing?

Drafts. I know it can do so much, but I tend not to think of it until after the fact. That’s often half the battle with a new or under-used app – remembering what it can do for you and integrating it into your personal workflows.

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

iThe Phone is in use almost constantly. Even if I’m at the office, it is out and in sight for incoming messages, alerts, etc. It is also a great second (or third) dedicated screen, even if it is just monitoring Twitter or email. Some might say that’s a distraction, but I see it as keeping what I need or want to know in front of me.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

With iOS 11, I’m just starting to dig in to the productivity features, but really like what I see, especially for the iPad.

3D Touch on the iPhone is another of those features that you have to remember to use. Once you get in the habit, it is amazingly powerful.

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

I would set up a team to monitor the Mac media and help the product teams prioritize a list of items that need to be addressed – both bug features and feature requests or reinstatements. That would be a huge challenge since every single user thinks their way and their needs should come first. Still, there are often common issues that crop up that should make their way to the top of the list.

Thanks Chuck.

This week’s home screen feature Peter Lewis, maker of Keyboard Maestro, which recently got a nice update, one of my favorite productivity apps on the Mac. Peter not only shared his home screen but also some of his favorite apps on both iOS and Mac. So Peter, show us your home screen.

What are some of your favorite apps?

BBEdit (forever!), PCalc and NetNewsWire 3 are always running, and Acorn and Interarchy are also mainstays. Mail and Xcode are always running too, but I wouldn’t call either if them “favorites”.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Really Bad Chess on the iPad. That and chesstempo.com.

What app makes you most productive? 

Keyboard Maestro. Self-serving comment, sure, but other than Xcode, nothing is more important to my productivity.

What app do you know you’re underutilizing?

Script Debugger. I’m not a particularly competent AppleScripter. I’m hopeful that Script Debugger will help improve that, but so far I’ve failed to get the most out of it.

What is the app you are still missing?

Not so much an app, but the whole home automation space seems almost entirely untapped in terms of potential. That said, I really don’t understand people putting Internet connected microphones and cameras in their living rooms (or heaven forbid, their bedrooms!). But I’d definitely like to see some massive improvements in this space, and an iPad’s size is probably a perfect fit for the controller.

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

iPad at night to play games. I use my iPhone sporadically but not for much, just for boring “Smart Phone” stuff like phone calls, Messages, and Maps.

What Today View widgets are you using and why?

I use Workflow, but only for a few trivial tasks, mostly just emailing myself notes. None of my iPhone widgets really get much use — since I work from home on my Mac, I generally have access to my Mac whenever I want to do something, and so I don’t need to try to shoehorn myself into a 4″ screen.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

My favorite new feature is the “remember where I parked”, although I’m looking forward to speed limits and lane guidance when it eventually comes to Australia.

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

A massive increase on the primacy of software quality. There are just too many bugs shipping currently. I’d also like to see a re-focus on the Mac and accept the duality, and free up the iPad/iPhone to be what they are good at instead of making them so complicated that they lose the simplicity advantage they had.

Thanks Peter.

This week I’m featuring my own iOS 11 iPad home screen, partly because it’s so weird. Here it is. (Click to enlarge.)

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The Gorilla on the Couch – That Crazy Dock

For a long time, I’ve kept all my apps on the home screen with everything not on the screen located in four folders. I’ve given those folders verb names, Make, Learn, Fix, and Play. Traditionally I opened apps from the home screen or one of those folders. I still do that on my iPhone.

To say I flipped out when Apple announced iOS 11 is an understatement. I installed beta 1 like a crazy man. One of my first observations about iOS 11 was that the dock is now much more important. It is prime real estate for apps, particularly if you like to use split screen multitasking. Unless you have your iPad connected to a keyboard, getting to apps to split the screen takes too many steps. At first I filled the dock with as many icons as it would accept but then they got too small and I use enough apps that I still didn’t have everything I regularly needed.

About halfway through the iOS 11 beta, I got the idea of putting all my apps on the dock. It started out as a sort-of joke so I could share screenshots of my iPad looking more like a Mac. The thing is though … it worked for me. So now my home screen is empty and my dock has a few essentials, but also my Make, Learn, Fix, and Play folders. Opening the folder to get to a split screen app feels silly but is still way faster than getting to an app on the home screen.

All of my nerd-friends think I’m crazy but I’ve been pretty happy with this setup. I think the tipping point for this is people that use multitasking without a keyboard. If that’s you, give this a try for a week.

The other thing I did was to turn off Suggested and Recent Apps to the right of my dock. I found I wasn’t paying attention to those so a few weeks ago I toggled them off in the Dock preferences tab. I haven’t missed them.

Some of My Favorite Apps

I love so many Apps. For this post, I want to focus on a few that particularly shine in iOS 11:

Gladys

There was a lot of talk prior to iOS 11 about adding a “shelf” to iOS. Federico Viticci did a great job of showing the advantage of such an interface in his iOS 11 concept video. Apple didn’t add a shelf but with the drag and drop tools, they made it possible for third party app developers to, in essence, make a shelf. The idea behind a shelf is a temporary space on your iPad where you can store things for later use, like digital walnuts you’re burying for winter.

There are a lot of developers releasing shelf apps and I’ve been buying and trying these as they release. I don’t know what app will rise to the top of this space but my current favorite is Gladys. With this app, I can drop most kinds of media, text, and links as I collect them on a project and, using slide over, have them available for use elsewhere as I work on my iPad. This is such a key tool for multitasking that I’ve put Gladys in my dock despite how much I dislike the icon.

Fantastical

Of course the Fantastical team was early to drag and drop. Not only can you now drag and drop events and reminders inside Fantastical, you can also pull events out of Fantastical and drop them in other apps. Drag an appointment out of Fantastical into an email and it becomes an ICS file. Drag some text into Fantastical and it creates an event using the dropped text.

OmniFocus

Drag and drop OmniFocus has been a game changer for me. Every day I start out auditing my email on the iPad with Apple Mail on the left and OmniFocus on the right. Much dragging and dropping ensues. One of the nice things is the link-back created in OmniFocus for linked emails works on both Mac and iOS. I’ve already started production on some screencasts around OmniFocus and iOS 11. It will be a free update to the OmniFocus Video Field Guide and I’ll be releasing it in the next month (hopefully a few weeks).

1Password

This is another app that jumped into drag and drop with both feet. The new 1Password lets me drag passwords onto web forms and re-arrange fields internally.

I feel like this drag and drop thing is going to only get better as app developers feed off each other’s ideas.

My Current Guilty Pleasure

I’m spending a lot of time in iBooks lately. It’s not debugging one of my own iBooks but instead reading Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View. A lot of Star Wars fiction is garbage. This is not.

A Small Change

If I were in charge at Apple, I would continue iterate on multitasking. One small change that I think could help would be to include Finder search at the top of the Control Center/Spaces screen. That’s accessible from a single swipe up from the bottom of the screen and would make it much easier to get to non-dock-based apps when multitasking.

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My Wallpaper

Another advantage of putting everything in the dock is that I can use really nice wallpaper and see it all. Currently I’m using some concept art from the Disneyland Star Wars expansion. I change wallpapers often though.

This week’s home screen post features Jason Tate (website)(Twitter). In addition to running Chorus.fm, Jason also hosts the Encore podcast, about the music industry. Jason’s also an Apple geek. So Jason, show us your home screen.

What are some of your favorite apps?

The big three are Drafts, Launch Center Pro, and Omnifocus. Omnifocus helps me run my life, and it was thanks to your great video courses that I was able to tap into the power the app offers. Drafts has become almost indispensable for me when handling text on the iPhone. Whenever an idea hits me I instinctively open Drafts. I know that I can easily move the text to a better place (event, todo, note) after it’s written out. And lastly, there’s Launch Center Pro. Which is kind of a cheat, because I use it to tie-in with Workflow to perform a variety of different tasks and give me access to a bunch of things I want to get to quickly, but don’t use enough to keep on the home screen. (E.g. 3D Touch to bring up fast access to the phone, settings, and different logging workflows I use.)

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Overcast and Tweetbot. They just feel like such staples in my life now that I don’t know what I’d do without either. One for listening to podcasts, learning, being entertained, and one as a machine to check in on whatever fresh horrors are going on in the world at any given moment. (Also memes and @Darth photoshops.) 

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Probably the Music app. There’s still some things that bother me about how it’s designed, and I feel like I’m one of the weird ones that hasn’t had many issues with Apple Music, but I do really like the app and service. Having access to my collection of music, anywhere, is something I’ve dreamt about since I was a kid. Now that it’s here, I still sometimes can’t believe how great it is. 

Beyond that? It would be Letterboxd. It’s not on the home screen, but it’s such a great little app to log what movies I’ve seen and see what other people are watching and enjoying. 

What app makes you most productive? 

Omnifocus, and there’s not a particularly close second.

What app do you know you’re underutilizing?

Ulysses. I use it mostly as a way to access all of the text documents that are stored in the app or in Dropbox. It has a fantastic, and very fast, search. However, I know I’m just scratching the surface of what the app can do.

What is the app you are still missing?

It seems silly, but I just don’t think there’s a photo app that has been cracked yet in a way that works right for me. I’ve tried a variety of third party apps, and all the big ones from the regular players, and none of them seem to stick, or feel right, for handling, managing, and searching my photos. It’s like all of them are close, but missing just enough to make it really work.

What Today View widgets are you using and why?

From top to bottom: Dark Sky, to give a quick and easy look at what the current weather is and what’s coming up. I live in Portland, OR, so knowing at a glance if I need to grab a coat with a hood when walking out the door is essential. Fantastical, so that I can get an overview of what events are on my calendar for the day. Streaks, which I use for a few select “habits” I’d like to maintain and track. Launch Center, where I just have quick links to Settings, Bluetooth, creating a Draft, and getting directions to a location. Then I have an ESPN widget to track my favorite sportsball teams and scores, and the batteries widget is at the bottom.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

At this point it’s the incredible app ecosystem that continues to produce great apps that I think are second to none. There’s a high bar for great software, and developers continue to impress me and release fantastic updates to apps that I don’t think I could live without.

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

I think I’d work on a more robust backup and photo solution. iCloud Backups feel like a half measure to me, it’s almost as good as I think everyone wants it to be. The goal would be: your phone could be thrown in a lake somewhere, and you could sign into a new one and all your stuff would be there without much work. You wouldn’t need to worry about managing your backup “cloud space” and deciding when or what you want to backup. I think that’s the direction they’re moving in, but it’s not in a place where I’d trust it completely. Especially with photos or other important documents.

What’s your wallpaper and why?

My current wallpaper is a simple graph paper design. For the home screen wallpaper, I like something simple and non-distracting. I shift between enjoying a primary color with a “blur” effect on it, and these subtle lines. I’ve never been one for the completely solid color background, I want a little movement or structure to it, and this has felt like a good compromise. The lock screen is where I change up the photo more often, usually to whatever is striking my fancy on a particular month. It’s currently Spider-Gwen.

Anything else you’d like to share?

Nope! Thanks so much for featuring my home screen and for the great podcast and blog. I’m on Twitter posting mostly about music @jason_tate, and doing the same over at chorus.fm.

Greg Scown (website)(Twitter) started his programming career at Apple but eventually made his way out of Cupertino and into his the Apple developer community. Greg is one of the owners of Smile Software and is, in addition to being a geek like us, a very nice man. So Greg, show us your home screen.

What are some of your favorite apps?

1Password, Fantastical, Overcast, and Slack are all long-term faves. Micro.blog is my new/trending favorite, and Tweetbot is a stalwart.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Threes, sound on.

What app makes you most productive? 

1Password.

What app do you know you’re underutilizing?

OmniFocus.

What is the app you are still missing?

An app (or site) to search podcasts for appearances by a particular guest. Let’s say I want to hear Daveed Diggs. I’d love something which could point me to his appearances on Fresh Air, Morning Edition, Hamilton fan podcasts, etc.

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

I constantly use my iPhone, especially when I’m away from my desk. I’ve recently taken to leaving the iPad open and sitting on my desk so that it can be a gentle reminder of when HootSuite notifications come in from Smile’s Twitter accounts.

What Today View widgets are you using and why?

I’m not a Today View power user, so I mostly use it for Siri app suggestions.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

Beyond the fact that it’s an amazingly powerful computer in my pocket, the likes of which was difficult to imagine just 15 years ago? I’d say the camera, in that having a camera in my pocket allows for spontaneous picture taking which I never did before the iPhone.

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

I’d liberate Newsstand and free the trapped New Yorker app.

Do you have an Apple Watch? Show us your watch face tell us about it.

Yes, and I crashed it trying to make a screen shot of my watch face. In fact, I can’t seem to get it to make a screen shot. I use the Utility face with the battery life, activity, and timer complications. I use timers on the watch all the time when cooking. I particularly like them when I have company because they’re discreet, so I don’t have to interrupt conversations with buzzers or bells.

What’s your wallpaper and why?

Sunset in Ixtapa, Mexico. It’s one of my favorite places.

Anything else you’d like to share?

I generally feel that one is meant to learn something from a home screen post, and I’m not sure there’s much to be gleaned from mine. Here’s one thing, though. I put Settings in a prominent spot because I use it for a DIY dark mode so that I can read myself back to sleep if I wake up in the middle of the night.

Thanks, Greg. Also … thanks for giving me an excuse to link Daveed Diggs at MacSaprky.