By Tim Brookes
Often find yourself wading through pages of icons, looking for that certain app? There’s a better way. Learn to organize your iPhone home screen properly, and use a few extra tips to find the right app every time.
Here are out favorite tips and tricks for a more productive iPhone.
Remember: You Can Always Search With Spotlight
This isn’t really an organizational trick, rather a super-handy way of always finding the app you’re looking for (provided you can remember its name).
Simply pull-down on the home screen to reveal the search bar (or slide left and tap Search) and type the name of the app.
Another alternative is to simply ask Siri to launch the app for you. The Master List of Every Siri Command and QuestionSiri can do a lot for you, but did you know she could do this much? Here's an exhaustive list of commands Siri will take.READ MORE
1. Reset Your Home Screen Layout
Things really gone amiss? Start again with a fresh home screen—just like Apple intended.
Head to Settings > General > Reset and choose Reset Home Screen Layout. This will place all of Apple’s default apps on your main home screen, with apps you’ve downloaded and folders you’ve created on subsequent screens.
While the default layout might not be to your tastes, this is a pretty useful way to separate apps and start re-arranging things on your home screen.
2. Pick a Scheme and Stick to it
The biggest aid to being productive on your iPhone is consistency. You can approach app sorting from several different directions, but they only work if you enforce your own rules so that you can find what you want.
For some ideas, consider organizing your apps:
- Alphabetically: Tried and tested, but may result in way too many homescreens if you don’t use folders. Consider creating folder “bins” for your apps (e.g. “A-C” and “D-F” and so on).
- By color: Maybe your brain works better by associating colors. A scheme like this can see Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn all grouped together, while WhatsApp, Messages, and Spotify sit off to the side.
- By association: Placing similar apps next to each other is another option. You could have a screen for work tools like Slack, Evernote, and OneDrive, some games on another, and your core Mail, Messages, and Safari front-and-center.
- By action: This applies to folders. Rather than opting for vague terms like “shopping” or “news”, lead with an actionable verb (e.g. listen, read, or watch). Then when you’re looking for an app, all you need to do is determine the app’s purpose to quickly find the relevant folder (and similar applications).
3. Make Better Use of Folders
Folders are a bit of a mixed bag on iOS. One of my favorite ways to use them is to increase the usefulness of the iOS dock by putting a folder in it.
The folder will remain accessible from any homescreen, and it’s a handy technique to use if you have a lot of favorite apps you find yourself reaching for all the time.
There’s actually no limit on the number of folders you can put in the dock, but two seems to be a sensible limit. This part of the home screen is designed for apps like Messages and Mail that you find yourself requiring quick access to all the time.
Folders are a necessary evil if you have lots of apps, but they often don’t make finding things very easy. A lot of this is down to naming conventions since it’s hard to categorize many apps. Using actions to name your folders as per our tip above can help, but if you want something a little easier on the eye why not use emoji?
Not only can it look great, it can let you improvise your own naming conventions using smileys, animals, food, and activities. You can get more specific with sub-categories, or use multiple emojis to denote app groupings (e.g., cycling, hiking and football).
4. Create a Home Screen That’s Useful to You
This probably sounds obvious, but we all use our iPhones differently. Some of us launch the same four apps every day and rarely venture off the path. Others might download ten games per week. Maybe you’re a runner or cyclist who uses apps like Strava and Spotify on a regular basis, but not every day.
Your first home screen is for your most useful apps. It’s best to leave folders for the second home screen, since your first home screen provides single-tap access to the really useful stuff.
Wondering which apps you tend to use the most? Settings > Battery will provide a breakdown of battery usage by app, tap the clock icon to see a breakdown of how long you’ve used each app.
Your second screen is a great place to put folders, since it doesn’t require too many swipes and taps to access. If you don’t have a lot of apps, you can get rid of folders entirely.
Does it take you too long to launch an app on a consistent basis? Move that app closer to the front. Demote things you no longer use. Keep evolving your home screen based on usage to keep it relevant and useful.
Don’t fall into the trap of leaving apps like LinkedIn on your home screen because you think you really should be using them. This also applies to the dock!
5. Remove Things You Don’t Need
iOS 11 introduced a much-requested feature: stock apps you can finally delete! Apple now lets you download apps like Contacts and Stocks from the App Store, so you can delete what you don’t want until you really need it. No more throwing useless apps into an “unused” folder. Just delete them!
Other apps you can get rid of, or at least bury in a folder:
- Camera: Swipe up to reveal Control Center (or swipe left on the lock screen) to launch the camera.
- Timer/Alarm/World Clock: Also accessible from the Control Center, and they’re all the same app.
- Calculator: Again, accessible via Control Center (head to Settings > Control Centerto rearrange and add more).
- Contacts: The Phone app does the same thing, it just starts you on a different tab.
- Mail: Especially useful if you’re using Gmail or another great iOS email app.
- Shazam: You can now ask Siri to Shazam music for you!
- Source: www.makeuseof.com
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