The Coveted iPhone Home Screen | Hacker News Reader

The Coveted iPhone Home Screen

blog.waxman.me

17 pointsjerryguo8 comments

This article is in the same vein as MG Siegler's "The App Wall" http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/05/the-app-wall/

    The app wall means that for every app in, one must go out. That means your
    app has to be good enough to displace another one. If you’re not designing
    an app that is meant to be on the homescreen of every iPhone or Android
    phone out there, you’re not aiming high enough.

I don't agree. You don't have to displace angry birds if you are making a game. You don't have to displace Saint Petersburg local train timetable service app (just made that up) if there wasn't any in first place.

But this is a problem.

I don't want ten or twenty choices that define my existence. AND I don't want to keep changing my icons.

I want the most relevant icons to "just appear". Based on where I am and where I've just been. Based on what I'm doing. Based on what I've been doing for the last few days. Based every iota of information a machine can get from my activities. ten or twenty or fifty icons won't give me this.

If every successful app is a brick in the wall, the wall will be a problem not just for developers but for users will feel the poverty of only N-choices.

Google beat every portal because a search is ultimately better than drill through N-categories. Some similar approach needs to happen in the "mobile arena".

Edit: Hey, down votes don't always need a reason. But in this case, a reason seem would seem... reasonable.

I had the exact same experience this morning. I downloaded Instagram and wanted to use it in my daily life. I have found if I move apps to the home screen, I use them 90% more often than ones on the other pages even the second page. My mind does not even think of using them.

This would be a great psychology / UX experiment. I would love to see if other people share the same characteristics.

I am not saying that I judge a book by its cover, but I won't put an ugly icon on my home screen. I might bury it in the one folder I have if I like it enough (I'm looking at you, Evernote, iTap RDP). Just sayin'

> I have upwards of 150 apps on my iPhone. Only 20 can fit on my home screen. I populate it with the apps I use the most.

Unless you cheat like me and use a folder.

Since I never use spotlight on the iPhone, I make the 2nd page of apps my home, and use folders so I only have three pages total, so everything is within one swipe of home.

I also put my most-used apps (such as phone and e-mail) not on the dock but along the arc of my thumb, for easy one-hand operation.

Same thing applies for almost any mobile platform and is more/less severe based on how the "home page" UI is developed. On Windows Phone 7, there are even fewer slots to put applications, 8 to be specific. But thankfully they are hubs so can combine functionality of multiple apps in it. e.g. the email/call/facebook etc functionality is all driven off the People hub. All games are driven off the games hub etc.

If you think about it from the platform's perspective it's bad that it can only give front page to a limited set of apps. It makes it extremely competitive for the developer to make a good app to get on that page.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com