Ben Crowder

So today I discovered First & 20, a collection of iPhone home screens. And yes, because I am nerdy, I needed to go and do likewise. :) Here, then, are the apps on my iPhone:

Screen #1

I use Maps fairly often, especially now that I have a car and drive places. I’ve got Calendar synced with Google Calendar via Google Sync and use it almost every day. After several tries, I finally realized I liked Things, and while I still don’t use it as extensively as I should (translation: I’ve got to-do items hanging out all over the place — mostly post-its or written on my hand — but need to consolidate them all into one place), I like it.

I love WriteRoom and use it when I work on my novel on my phone or to take quick notes. I haven’t really started using WriteRoom.ws yet — I prefer SimpleNote’s web interface. (And I always forget to sync.) Instapaper is one of my favorite apps for reading and I use it all the time. (I especially love Givemesomethingtoread.com for finding articles.) I also love Stanza and use it to read books in ePub (anything I can’t read with Eucalyptus, basically). And I use Messages a lot for texting, of course.

Clock is my alarm clock, and I seriously heart the ability to set multiple alarms. (Like this morning, when it saved my skin: I had alarms set for 4:30, 4:32, 4:35, and 4:40, and I didn’t wake up until the 4:35 alarm went off.) I use Photos a lot, both for photos and videos (which I’ve been using a ton — very glad I got the 3GS). And Eucalyptus! I love Eucalyptus. It makes me happy. Reading books is mmm good. And going along with Photos, I use Camera a lot. Love it.

I mostly use Settings to turn wi-fi on and off, to switch to airplane mode when I’m at work so my battery life doesn’t get drained (I work underground and there’s very little reception, and if I don’t turn airplane mode on, the phone keeps trying to find a signal and generally eats up a lot of battery). Scriptures is of course the scriptures and I use it almost every day. I love Birdhouse. I use it all the time to post tweets. And Birdfeed is wonderful, too. Mmm. I like Twitter apps. :)

And the dock apps are the ones I use a ton. (Though, come to think of it, I don’t use Safari nearly as much as, say, Messages. Maybe I’ll swap those…)

Screen #2

Dropbox is just a shortcut to the mobile web interface, but I’m way excited for the real iPhone app to come out. (I love Dropbox.) I use Calculator a lot. I switched to using The Weather Channel instead of the default Weather app, but I’m realizing now I haven’t actually used it in a while. Maybe because the weather’s been good. ;) Brushes is awesome for painting (and they just added layers!).

The new Facebook app is great and much, much better than the old one. I use Air Sharing to keep some PDFs on my phone for easy access. Ego is great for checking my Twitter and blog stats. And I really love the way Simplenote syncs seamlessly with the website.

I haven’t used CameraKit or CameraBag or Darkslide very much since my iPhone-picture-a-day thing a few months ago, but they’re handy apps — the first two let me apply some nice effects to the shots, and Darkslide lets me upload the pics to Flickr. (I’ll have to check out the official Flickr app sometime.) I like the idea of Byline — a feed reader synced with Google Reader (which I adore) — but I never use it.

Voice Memos is wonderful and I’ve used it several times. I’ve dabbled a little bit with the WordPress app but don’t really ever use it. Mint.com is good, though, and will be even better once I get my new budget set up. I use Evernote to store the chapter outlines for my novel (but I’m thinking of moving those into Simplenote or WriteRoom).

Screen #3

(I rarely use the apps from here on out, so this’ll be faster.)

I’m not much of a game player, and I actually can’t remember the last time I played Deep Green (chess), Moonlight lite (mahjongg), or Frotz (interactive fiction), but I’ve played Wurdle with Meridith.

The Bible app has lots of different translations of the Bible, which is cool. Someday I’ll start using Skype more often. I rarely if ever use Pandora. You know, I’m not sure why I still have Classics — Eucalyptus far surpasses it, in my opinion.

LDS Radio is nice but I haven’t used it all that much. I never use Compass. iSSH is there for when I need to edit my website remotely and I’m not at a computer. That hasn’t happened yet. :) And I used to use Tweetie before Birdfeed came around.

Pianist is for tapping out melodies that come to mind (which hasn’t happened yet — I haven’t been in much of a composition mode for years now). I love the UI of Convert and keep it on hand as reference. Where To? looked cool but I haven’t really used it.

Screen #4

I never use iTunes, Stocks, or Notes. I do use YouTube from time to time.

Most of the time I get to the App Store via iTunes on my home computer. I’ve used Shazam a couple of times and mostly keep it on hand for showing off. I never use the Weather app. iStake is cool for keeping a mobile stake directory, but I’ve only used it once, I think.

I like Now Playing for when I go to the movies, which isn’t all that often. And I probably should use Pennies but haven’t gotten in the habit yet. Yelp helped me find a nice taco shop once, but I haven’t used it since then. And now that I’ve disconnected my credit card from Amazon, I don’t really need the Amazon.com app anymore.

Conclusion

I love the iPhone. :P