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Comment by CoffeeDregs | Hacker News Reader

All this discussion of swiping presupposes that it's reasonable to organize things iOS-style. I think that it isn't.

1) I organize my Android's 3 screens by function: (left) Scheduling/Tasks, Home, (right) Social stuff. On each screen are a relevant widget (or two) and related apps.

2) The Android app drawer is much more useful than iOS's app pages because the app drawer is arranged alphabetically, is continuous and is organized top-to-bottom. I use the drawer about 10% of the time and, when I do, I don't need to "recall where all 80 apps live" because I recall the alphabet.

    ... a total of 6 swipes.  I'd bet that this is a 
    pretty common scenario for most people with enough
    apps to fill 5 screens.

Agreed. But only on iOS.

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> 1) I organize my Android's 3 screens by function: (left) Scheduling/Tasks, Home, (right) Social stuff. On each screen are a relevant widget (or two) and related apps.

But then the question of 4 swipes vs 2 is kind of moot. You're not using 5 screens to store apps, so comparing your setup to iOS isn't apples to apples.

Personally, I setup my 3 screens (iOS) to have 1. Stuff I use a lot, 2. Stuff I use a little, 3. Stuff I barely use. This works well for me, and going to a left-center-right model wouldn't gain me anything (I expect that it would cost me instead).

> 2) The Android app drawer is much more useful than iOS's app pages because the app drawer is arranged alphabetically, is continuous and is organized top-to-bottom. I use the drawer about 10% of the time and, when I do, I don't need to "recall where all 80 apps live" because I recall the alphabet.

This is debatable. There's something to be said for not forcing alphabetical order. It comes down to personal preference, though.

If you don't want it in alphabetical order, put the apps on your home/launcher screens and organize them how you want. The app drawer is only a fallback for apps that aren't commonly used (therefore, they need to be in a logical order as you aren't likely to remember where they are)

IMO, the left swipe + a letter to search is easer than the app drawer when you actually have a lot of apps. Most common apps, fit on the home screen swipe to the right once for folders of lesser used apps or swipe left once to search for a half remembered app.

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