The last time I posted about the various apps I have been using on my iPhone I was extolling the virtues of Mailbox. Well, a few weeks in and it has found its way off my home screen and into an “Alt Mail” folder on screen two. I have become almost obsessed with finding the perfect combination of apps to occupy the first screen real estate on my iPhone 4S. I am finding that to really make it happen, I have started using folders in the dock area. This is something I did specifically foe SXSW this year to keep the half dozen or so apps I was using while there completely accessible. Now I am trying the same idea, but with a folder dedicated to the things I use on the Internet regularly — these are not apps that I want to have clogging up my home screen, but do offer daily value. Another big change is that I have started using Path quite a bit again as it was sa staple through SXSW … amazing how much better an app is when there are actually people you like using it as well. Another little app that has found front page real estate is “Forecast” … it is a web app by the same crew that did “Dark Sky.” The thing I really like about it is that they are trying to build an open weather platform that others can use — not sure if it is time to ring the warning bell for accu-weather, but they should be paying attention.
It has me thinking a lot about an idea I have been toiling over since the Bloomsburg Flood in 2011 — a true platform to empower local news reporting. That is a post for another day, but the idea of an open, social, mobile, and simple to use platform for local news is quite appealing to me me. I continue to think that local newspapers are going to fade away and we will be left with a multi-year local news gap. I’d like to find a way to bridge that before too long. One thing that has been occupying some of my mental cycles is how powerful Instagram is for capturing and sharing digital stories. I posted to the The Bloomsburg Daily’s facebook page today that I am interesting in seeing if people would take instagrams locally in Bloomsburg and tag them with #bloomdaily so we can curate and expose them. I have no idea if a single person will do so, but I think it is part of a larger idea that needs to be tested. At any rate here’s my new home screen in all its boring glory.
Hah, shows you what I knew, that is new to me you can put a folder on the bar, though it seems like an additional click. Cant figure out why they cannot design a horizontal scrolling dock (it’s there for active apps).
I know one fix, an iPhone 5 gives you 5 rows of apps, upgrade baby! Maybe the trend continues and an iPhone 6 will give you 6.
While I’ve not gone back much to instagram, I can see why it is a sensible app for what you describe, quick cross posting, easy community tagging, geo locating. One grip I have is the down quality of the pictures it saves, but maybe thats not a problem for rapid news making. It would be nice if Instagram provided access to the uploaded source image (is it really discarding them, does anyone know?)
Wow, Path was the hot app at SXSW? It was mildly interesting, but like you said, with few people there…
And thanks for the up to Forecast– its hard to undertand why apple still locks in to Yahoo weather. Been using Weather Channel for a while.
Hope your weather is Spring sun, brother!
Path worked at sxsw because the people I was there with all used it … it was like a micro network for staying connected. Between that and groupme we were connected in very cool ways the whole time. I continue to be very interested in the whole local news scene and I do thing there is something to be done in the space … just not 100% what it is. And, yes the instagram quality is a little lacking, but the community is cool and I like how simple it all is.
Weather is cold … ready for real spring! Also ready for another Growler with the Dog!
My home screen has kind of stabilized. A whole folder of weather apps. Seems excessive. No Forecast on this side of the border (yet)…
I was surprised by your lack of folders…still…thanks for sharing. It is always interesting to see someone else’s perspective!