My 2021 Home Screen
I did this back in 2019 and skipped 2020 because frankly my home screen didn’t change that much, but I’m bringing the home screen roundup back for 2021. Widgets, finally, changed the traditional grid structure of iOS’s home screen structure and people went wild. I haven’t gone down the rabbit hole of custom app icons — which it seems to have been fully embraced by the powers that be. I have added some widgets though, and I’ve found them to be incredibly handy. Let’s start at the top.
Everyone’s favorite digital assistant to rag on does a surprisingly good job when it comes to widget “stacks.” The general thesis here is that you can stack a bunch of different widgets on top of each other and the right one will be displayed in the proper context. I would say it works most of the time. Across the top of my screen I have a 2×4 widget stack with my calendar, maps, and an AQI map leftover from California’s fire season. I went with the larger size here because the calendar widget will actually display your daily calendar next to the monthly calendar, the map will sometimes display the trip your frequent take with the ETA and suggested route, and the AQI map shows me a wide enough range of data that I can see what the air quality is across my entire region.
Utility Apps
Next up, I what I like to think of as my utility block. I have the Todoist widget which is my task manager of choice after trying a couple of others. In terms of the utility apps I use I have Safari, Photos, Dark Sky, and Spark. Let me explain:
Safari: Yes, I use stock Safari. Bite me. I own an iPad Pro, an M1 MacBook Air, and an iPhone 12 Pro Max…continuity just makes it all work.
Photos: I take a lot of photos and I want to have access to them easily.
Dark Sky: Apple acquired the app Dark Sky earlier this year, and it seems like they’re adding some of the features to the default weather app; but I still prefer their native app. It’s far and away the most powerful weather app I’ve ever used and has saved me from getting wet on a number of occasions.
Spark: Look, I didn’t blame you if you never wanted to deal with the inconvenience of using a third-party email app. It was not fun. But now you can change the default email app and there are some great email apps. I choose to use Spark by Readdle. I have found that it is the best email app around between its ability to integrate with my other apps, its Smart Inbox, calendar integration, collaborative features, scheduling features, snoozing, notification management, and so much more.
Fun Apps
After work comes the fun apps, or at least what I consider fun. Maybe the content apps is the better way to think about this next section of apps. Part of my 2021 reboot is to reinvigorate my writing and reading habits by putting them front and center — which is exactly what I’m doing. Let’s dig in:
Notion: I use Notion as a sort of LifeOS, but also as my note-taking app. I use Notion to organize my thoughts and ideas. Basically, it’s for logistics and notes.
Ulysses: I’m writing this on Ulysses right now. This is a 2021 addition — Ulysses markets itself as “the ultimate writing app,” and so far, it’s living up to the hype. I used to use Bear as my writing powerhouse, but it started to crumble under the weight of more and more writing. I’m excited to really dig into Ulysses this year.
Audible: I’m a big believer in holding and reading books, but the convenience of audiobooks on a drive (not that I’m doing a lot of driving these days) or a bike ride is great. Plus, Obama narrates the near 30 hours of A Promised Land and who can pass up 30 hours of that sweet, sweet baritone?
Matter: Matter is a super early stage reading app that focuses on writers. I’m a reader that favors writers. Give me a good Kara Swisher OpEd, a Dieter Bohn review, a Casey Newton platform piece, or a piece on habits by Charles Duhigg, and I’m set. The issue is that while some of these writers reliably write for the same publications day in and day out, others don’t. Matter tracks writers across the internet and serves up all of their pieces in a single feed. Not only that, but it also has the usual reader app features like article saving and suggestions. If Matter sounds like something you’d be interested in trying out let me know, and I can send you my invite link.
Finally, we have the Kindle widget. This is to prevent my Twitter doom scroll habit. Instead of scrolling through Twitter for 10 minutes I want to pick up my book for 10 minutes. I just wish Amazon’s WhisperSynch service worked a bit better so reading between my phone and Kindle was a truly seamless experience.
Conclusion
Well, there it is. My 2021 home screen is focused on writing, reading, and optimizing productivity. That isn’t to say that everyone needs to be productive all the time, but that’s a conversation for another post…maybe after I’m done reading Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing.
