I always love looking at Homescreens of other people, looking for layout inspirations as well as noteworthy apps to test out. Furthermore, I appreciate seeing my old homescreens as documents of the past. That‘s why I want to start a series on this blog covering my homescreens. I‘m not yet sure about regularity yet, but the start of a new year seems as a good starting point.

iPhone 13 Pro Max

My most used devices, bridging different productivity and entertainment use cases.

Screenshot of the iPhone 13 Pro Max Homescreens

Some of my favorite and most noteworthy apps:

  • Overcast: Still my preferred podcast app, although I keep switch between Pocket Casts, Castro and Overcast.
  • Ivory: Tapbot‘s client that finally made Mastodon „click“ for me and mostly replace Twitter. Still in beta, but look forward to the release. Not to forget, you can find me as @kleinheld@mastodon.social.
  • Spark: I‘m testing Spark as my new email client right now. Quite like their interpretation of a „smart“ inbox.
  • Obsidian: Unbelievably powerful note-taking app and text editor. I probably don‘t even use 10% of its capabilities.
  • Apollo: If you visit Reddit and use an iPhone, Apollo‘s the app to get.
  • Shortcuts Launcher: A meta Shortcut that launches other shortcuts I regularly use. Might be a topic for another post.
  • Carrot: The best weather app for iOS. Extremely customizable and a role model for any iOS app.
  • MusicBox: Useful little tool that functions as a „read-later app“ for music.
  • Widgy: Great app to create your own widgets. My widget isn‘t that beautiful, but displays the temperature outside and in two rooms at home. The app allows you to do way, way more than shown in my widget.

iPad Pro 12.9

The Homescreen probably isn‘t even that important on my iPad. Most apps that are relevant are already placed in the dock or get launched from Spotlight.

Screenshot of the iPad Pro 12.9 inch Homescreen

Some of my favorite apps:

  • Reeder: Lately, RSS has once again gotten more attention and publicity. Reeder has for almost as long as I remember been my place to reed feeds.
  • Keep It: My archive anything and everything app. User manuals, articles, images, screenshots and more find their permanent archival place here.
  • Anybox: A neat bookmark manager I‘ve recently discovered and startet using. Great if the bookmark manager of your browser isn‘t quite enough.
  • Play: From the same developer as MusicBox, a watch later application for YouTube. Offers more features like sorting, tags and Shortcuts integration compared to YouTube‘s own watch list.
  • Ulysses: Where I write longer pieces of text, like this blog post. Thankfully included in my Setapp subscription.
  • Freeform: Apple‘s newest productivity app, offering interactive mindmaps. Not yet too sure of its place in my workflow.

iPad Mini

I use the iPad Mini as more of a “traditional” iPad with focus on media consumption and especially reading. Accordingly, the homescreen and dock varies quite a bit compared to the iPad Pro.

Screenshot of the iPad Mini Homescreen

Noteworthy apps:

  • Readwise Reader: As of now, my preferred read later service. Together with Matter, there‘s finally change and innovation in the reading tool market.
  • HiFiGuides: Not technically an app but only a bookmark to the amazing community in the HiFiGuides forum. One of my favorite places to talk and read about In-Ear Monitors.
  • Discord: The home of a handful of online communities I enjoy and take part on a somewhat regular basis.