My iPhone Homescreen (2021)

Oh boy, 2020 was a year. I remember thinking back in March that “it will last a few months, and then everything will be back to normal.” Yeah, right. But, on a positive note, Apple had a fantastic year, and the pandemic did well for them. Not only did we get four well-produced events in a single year, but, at last, we got widgets on the iPhone’s homescreen! Like last year and the year before that, I want to look at the current state of my iPhone’s homescreen.

Last year, I said this:

“I’m still rocking the first iPhone X. It’s held up quite well, but I’m looking forward to upgrading to the iPhone 12 Pro […].”

I’m using the same iPhone X (which had its screen replaced two times under Apple’s Replacement Program). I love how the new iPhones look and feel, but it doesn’t feel like a big upgrade. At least not big enough to justify spending over €1,000. Upgrading to any of the iPhone 12s would be a huge step up camera-wise from iPhone X. But, since I’m not going to travel soon, I will wait for iPhone 13. Besides, I have been using my Fujifilm camera a lot, putting my iPhone on a bench as a photo device. Now, to my homescreen.

Today View and iOS 14 widgets

Let me get it out: I love the new iOS 14 widgets*. It’s all I ever wanted Apple to do. The new widgets are beautiful, cross-platform, and can be placed on iPhone’s homescreen. The apps I care about support them, which is even more amazing. Why an asterisk, then? One thing that was great about the old implementation of widgets was interactivity. For example, Things 3’s widget allowed for checking off tasks without opening the app. It’s not possible anymore. You can tap on a task, but it will open the app and highlight the task instead of marking it as done. It’s not a dealbreaker, but I hope that Apple will address it in iOS 15.

As for my Today View setup, I went down to having just Shortcuts and Battery widgets. I used to have way more widgets on this page, like Calendar, Things, and Weather, but now all live on…

First page

At the top of my homescreen, I have a Stack of widgets with Smart Rotate on. That’s where I keep my Calendar, Things, and Weather widgets. I like the Stack feature, and I wish I had this back in my Android days.

There are a lot of changes on my first page, even besides the widget(s). It’s hard to notice, but I’m no longer using Cortex True Black wallpaper. The widget on top of the screen causes app icons to be misaligned with the wallpaper’s lines. Hence why I went back to the standard black wallpaper.

Last year, I talked about my apps in “raws” (productivity, multimedia, navigation, smart home), but my current arrangement is more mixed.

First raw are pre-installed apps from Apple. For yet another time, I’m back to using Apple’s default Mail app. Spark is great, and I find their privacy policy transparent. Still, I vastly prefer how Apple’s Mail integrates with the Apple Watch.

Safari keeps getting better, and the only thing I wish it had is support for multiple profiles, which both Chrome and Edge have.

I’m happy with both Apple Music and Apple Podcasts. I switched from Google Home to Amazon Echo last year, and now I can use both of the services using my smart speaker (although right after I bought my Echo, Google Home received support for Apple Music). Oh, and there’s still no Handoff for Apple Music (besides the HomePod).

The second raw starts with Google Maps. I have been using it a lot since it has great biking directions. I’m looking forward to seeing Apple Maps’ cycling navigation in Berlin. Apple’s app keeps getting better and has far better Apple Watch app than Google Maps. On that note — Google Maps is back on Apple Watch, and I couldn’t be happier about it!

I’m still pretty much into Apple Home and smart home in general. In 2020, I added a few more devices to my setup, including more IKEA TRADFRI lights and a smart humidifier. I also set up a few custom integrations via Homebridge, like a toggle switch for my Synology.

The last two apps in this raw are Instapaper and Kindle, my go-to places for reading.

The first two apps in the third raw are groceries-related. Splitwise is where my girlfriend and I split our expenses and Bring is a grocery list app with Alexa integration.

Since I have been working from home for almost the whole year, I could no longer do my 10K bike commute to the office. As a replacement, I started working out in my living room and Fitbod as the app I used to plan and track my training. I heard about it on Cortex, and it’s worth the annual fee.

I’m proud to say that I made a lot of progress with my German in 2020, and that’s thanks to Babbel. Their lessons are easy to follow, and they have a review feature.

The last raw are photo-related apps. The Photos and Camera apps are pretty self-explanatory, but Halide is worth giving it a moment. The app got a huge update last year with a lot of new features. If you’re looking for a pro camera app for the iPhone, especially if you have one of the iPhone 12 Pro models with ProRAW, buy it.

Dock

Similar to last year, my dock now contains communication apps. For some time, I had WhatsApp here, but the latest update to their privacy policy made me invite all my friends and family to Telegram.

Second page

In the past years, my second homescreen was jut full of apps categorized into folders. But since the introduction of App Library in iOS 14, I got rid of that page. Recently, though, I set up a finance-focused screen with my banking and financial apps. Last year made me look into saving options, mostly investing in stocks and ETFs. This whole topic is worth its own blog post. In fact, I wrote articles about American Express cards in Germany and Vivid Money.

And that’s it. If you want to share your iOS 14 homescreen, feel free to leave a reply here or tweet me.

PS. I started a YouTube channel about tech and more. Check it out!