Form follows function
One of my habits when I see people using their iPhone or iPad is actually checking how they setup the device, i.e. what are the used wallpapers and how do they group apps on the screen and into app folders.
I know, this is a highly personal thing, but it is interesting that you find a few common patterns across different users. Is this only a question of taste and style or can a specific layout of apps support a more efficient usage of the device? Based on my own experiences, it is the latter.
So, what are my driving factors in organizing my devices? In order to make the usage of an iPhone or iPad as efficient as possible, it is key to minimize search time for apps and have a consistent way of structuring your workspace. As soon as you have to search for a specific app, your are wasting time doing what you actually want to do. Yeah, you can always use the global iOS search to do that, but this requires the usage of the keyboard, which is not always possible.
Let me show you my principles of how I organize my device, independent if itâs my iPhone or iPad.
1. Donât use busy images or photos as a wallpaper
This is one of my favorites: people putting the most distracting images on the front page of the device. It is not only a sacrilege to destroy the design of a device that has been designed with every detail in mind, it is actually very distracting to have a busy image underneath the various app icons and folders. It simply becomes difficult to find the app you are looking for on top of such wallpapers. So, what are good wallpapers in this case? Appleâs genuine wallpapers are actually a good start if you look for something that fits to the rest of the device. They are simple and typically not too busy. If you want to do something that is the least distracting, I would vote for a pitch black background. No other wallpaper beats that. If you still wanna keep your personal touch, put your kids, pets, wife, ⌠onto the lock screen.
2. (Almost) donât touch the first page
This is another one of those rules that sounds kind of weird in the beginning, but keeps the look of your device clean and new. Leave the first page of your device almost untouched. I say almost as you might wanna replace certain Apple default apps by your favorite 3rd party app. Weâll come to the unused Appple apps later. Second rule here: donât fill the first page up with apps. Leave a row or even more space unused, which gives your device a very clean and lean look. This seems to be subtle, but it is always amazing to see how such a simple thing changes the whole UI. This goes hand in hand with my third rule âŚ
3. The most important apps go into the dock
The Dock is an important element of the iOS UI. Beside the first page, the dock is the most present UI element on iOS. It is always visible when you go back to the homescreen and it stays put even if you swipe between homescreen pages. Everything that goes into the dock can be reached with 2 clicks max: home button, app. Your most requently used apps should end up here. There is actually a modified version of this rule in case you are running out of app slots there: in such cases add an app folder into the doc. I usually do this on my devices.
The screenshot above actually shows both principles we just talked about: an almost untouched homescreen as well as the priority based dock including app folders with additional frequently used apps. I use to name this folder WTF ⌠and it holds all apps that would eventually go into the dock if there would be more space. This app folder can actually have several pages if you need more space, but in any case it still provides faster access to apps then anywhere else.
4. Use activity based app categories
If you group apps together on your iPhone or iPad, iOS intelligently suggests a folder name based on the categories of the apps you want to put together. The generated category can be more or less useful depending on the app categories. Typically you want to change this name as you donât want every other folder to be named Productivity or something very generic. One of the most compelling ways to name app folders for me is using activity labels similar to Read, Write, Listen, Watch or Play. Those labels are also kind of generic, but they are task/activity oriented and donât describe the type of apps as such. I find this very intuitive in case I have to remember an app location based on what I do. Most of those names are even self explanatory, allowing even other users to find stuff on my device with only a few touches. Another philosophy here is to have only 2 pages max per folder. I usually go for only one if possible. There is typically only one type of folder that doesnât follow this convention: the Play folder. There are simply too many games out there :) Finally a few last recommendation here that is similar to what I do on the first page: all app folders go to the second homescreen page, donât use single apps on that page and donât fill up the complete page with app folders. Here is my 2nd page âŚ
5. Move everything else out of the way âŚ
We are almost done here. The only thing that is left is putting all the Apple default apps somewhere and there are usually a couple of apps that you have to open only once (extensions, keyboards, etc.) or which are more system related and donât fit anywhere else. For those cases I have a -folder and a â-folder. Both are on the 3rd page and I usually donât have to go there for days.
I hope you find those tips helpful. You can of course pick and choose what you want to take over and what is not fitting your preferences.















