It has become an annual tradition to share my device home screens around this time each year. This serves as a snapshot of what I’m using, which allows me to see its evolution over time.

This year, I’ve decided to omit my iPad from the collection because I barely use it anymore. My Framework and iPhone has replaced all of my iPad usage. The only exception to that rule is its occasional use to watch shows from our Plex server at the dining room table. But we don’t even use my iPad to do that anymore, instead opting to use an old iPad Air 2 that’s shared among the family and is used almost exclusively for this purpose.

I’ve also decided not to share my Apple Watch, Apple TV, and Nintendo 2DS home screens this year because their layout has not changed since last year.

iPhone 15 Pro

Some notable changes that I’ve made since the last update:

• Beeper now lives where Messages was. The majority of people I chat with is still over iMessage, but I can still access Messages by tapping on notifications or long pressing the folder on my second Home Screen when it has a notification badge. Becky and I have moved all of our messaging over to Beeper using its built-in Matrix protocol. I wrote a bit about it back in July.
• I’ve written about it previously, but I’ve moved from Wallabag to Linkwarden and from 1Password to Vaultwarden with the Bitwarden app. I’m still enjoying this new setup and don’t have any plans to change again anytime soon.
• I’ve migrated from Apple Mail to Spark. It feels a lot like a lateral change. There are things I like about it and things I don’t. Despite seventeen years of the App Store, I still feel like there isn’t a single email client that truly stands above the rest. But Spark comes the closest, I suppose.
• I fully migrated from Google Photos to Immich over the summer. I’m very happy with the move. I love having one less subscription in my life and further taking ownership of my data.
• I’m using Prism again. It’s the best music app for Plex and has become necessary now that Plex has removed music libraries from their main app.

Framework 13, running Ubuntu 24.04

Very little change on the Framework. I’ve moved to using ArcMenu instead of Gnome’s built-in app launcher. I’ve also set the icon for ArcMenu to Framework’s logo, which looks quite handsome.

The only other change is the wallpaper. I’m now using the Blue macOS Tiger wallpaper from Basic Apple Guy. I love how bright and vibrant it makes the machine feel to use.

It has become an annual tradition to share my device home screens around the new year. This serves as a snapshot of what I’m using, which I can use to see the evolution over time.

I’ve add my Nintendo 2DS to the list, which I recently acquired. I’m still playing games on my iPhone using the Backbone One, but i purchased a 2DS to play Nintendo DS and 3DS titles. Emulation for these systems isn’t great on the iPhone. The dual screen of the systems doesn’t make for a great emulation experience and existing iPhones just aren’t powerful enough for smooth 3DS emulation.

iPhone 15 Pro

iPad Pro, 11-inch

Framework 13, running Ubuntu 24.04

Nintendo 2DS

I have dozens of 3DS games installed, but most recently I’ve been playing Super Mario 3D Land, Mega Man X2 in Snes9x, and Plants vs. Zombies through TWiLight Menu++.

Apple TV 4K

I’ve enabled Display Zoom for larger icons on the Home Screen. This can be done in Settings > General > Appearance by setting Display Zoom to “Large”. I’m glad they introduced this as an option because I never liked the move to smaller icons that came with tvOS 17.

Apple Watch Series 5

Last year I published my home screens at the beginning of January and declared that it will be an annual tradition. Following up that this year with my home screens below.

It’s worth noting that I had a dedicated gaming handheld last year, but that is no longer the case. Instead I’m using my iPhone as my gaming handheld, paired with the Backbone one to play games in Steam Link, PPSSPP, and RetroArch.

iPhone 15 Pro

iPad Pro, 11-inch

13-inch MacBook Air with M2

This is actually a screenshot of a virtual machine running Ubuntu 22.04. The MacBook is primarily a work machine and I had previously setup a separate user account on it for personal stuff. This year I decided to move that to a virtual machine instead, which makes it easier to switch back and forth for quick breaks throughout my work day.

Apple TV 4K

Apple Watch Series 5

I haven’t been sharing my home screens as regularly as I’d prefer, so I thought I’d just publish screenshots from each of my current devices at the beginning of the year and plan to do the same each year going forward.

iPhone 13 Pro

iPad Pro, 11-inch

MacBook Air with M2

Apple TV 4K

Retroid Pocket 3

Apple Watch Series 5

I’ve published an update to my Home Screens project on the first of every month this year. I’ve shared screenshots from my iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, and Apple Watch. But my October update will be delayed by at least a week. Over the past month I’ve shifted my focus toward a potential career opportunity that I don’t want to let slip through my fingers. With any luck, I’ll have some great news to share soon and I’ll be back to publishing regularly shortly afterward.

Notable Changes:

I’ve removed some lesser-used icons from my iPad home screen this month. Screens, Transmit, and Pages have all moved into my ⌥ folder and have been replaced by 1Password, Files, and the TV app. I’ve been using 1Password a lot more lately as I’ve been preparing for a new career opportunity, which I’ll hopefully be sharing more information on soon.

I’ve found myself reaching for the TV app more frequently lately, specifically while I’m eating lunch. As the summer comes to its end, my wife and I have been doing more in the evenings and I’ve had to keep up with my shows during my lunch breaks. My use of Transmit has also decreased recently as my usage of the Files app has picked up.

You might also notice that I’ve changed my custom Instagram icon to one of the default glyphs included in Workflow/Shortcuts. The old icon was just feeling a bit tired to me and thought it was time to change things up a bit. Eagle-eyed readers might have spotted the Toggl icon inside of my ⌥ folder. It’s not the native app, but instead another one of my fancy web shortcuts. I’m going to be tracking my time more often over the next several weeks and Toggl appears to be the best service for the job.

Notable Changes:

My experiment with Halide and Darkroom has ended. They’re great apps and perhaps I’ll return to them in the future, but I prefer the simplicity, speed, and reliability of shooting and editing with iOS’ default apps. Camera and Photos don’t have as many pro-level features and that’s okay. They get the job done just fine.

In a similar move toward the system’s default apps, I’ve switched from Newton to Mail for my email client of choice. The folks behind Newton will be retiring the app and service in late September and I figured it was better to just switch now. It’s been a long time since I gave Mail a chance and that was foolish, the app is much better than I remember it being. It’s fast, reliable, and it doesn’t automatically create a bunch of folders on your server to support features you aren’t going to use.

I’ve moved Video Games by iCollect into my ⌘ folder, given how infrequently I’ve launched it lately, and I’ve installed Amaroq and Mubert.

Like many others, I’ve been experimenting with the Mastodon platform lately and Amaroq is the best client I’ve found for the service. Unfortunately, it doesn’t save your scroll position, offer timeline sync, or have support for iPad. But the app is rock-solid-reliable and has the best visual design out of the clients I’ve tested. If you’d like to find me on the service I’m @mdrockwell@mastodon.social.

Mubert is an app I actually found in a screenshot of someone’s home screen. I can’t for the life of me remember who it was, though. Nevertheless, Mubert plays algorithmically generated music to help you focus. It has four primary stations — Study, Work, Relax, and Active — as well as a number of different genre stations. I’ve been listening to Mubert a lot while I’ve been writing and it certainly seems like it’s helped, a lot. The music is endless, seamlessly transitioning to different beats and rhythms as it plays. If you need a boost in productivity, I suggest giving the app a try.

Notable Changes:

I’ve installed HQ Trivia, which is a live game show app that lets players compete with thousands of others for cash prizes. I had heard about it long ago, but it took the Apple TV app for me to actually try it out. At the time of this writing, I’ve only participated in one game, but I expect I’ll continue to pop in when I’m able to.

I’ve also shifted Evoland II, Inside, and Rayman Adventures from my ⌥ folder to the top level of my Apple TV home screen. These are all games that I’d like to start playing or, in the case of Rayman Adventures, would like to play more of. Moving them to the top level is my way of reminding myself to launch them from time to time.

Scoreboard, an app that was once on my home screen, has made a return. My wife and I have been playing more board and card games in the living room lately and this app has been a great way for us to keep score.

Notable Changes:

I’ve given up on the Siri watch face for now. I’ve barely used it over the past month and I don’t expect that to change unless third-party developers add a lot more to the experience. Aside from some minor color adjustments, the only other notable change from last month’s setup is my fitness watch face.

My fitness face is now built on Modular instead of the Activity Digital that I had previously used. The longer I own and use an Apple Watch, the more I realize that Modular is the best and most versatile Watch face on the platform. I have it setup with the following complications:

• Breathe
• Activity
• Workout
• Cardiogram
• WaterMinder

This just leaves a few apps that I still want quick access to, but don’t have the room for in my current complication setup. I have Vekt, PCalc, and 1Password in my Watch’s Dock. And shoutout to the Apple developer that came up with the Now Playing indicator on watchOS 5, I’m glad I don’t have to keep that in my Dock anymore.

Browse the Home Screens Series.

Notable Changes:

The primary focus for my home screen changes over the past month has been subtle refinements of my existing setup — small optimizations to app placement to give me easy access to the apps I use most. I actually referenced iOS 12’s Screen Time feature in the Settings app to help me determine what my most frequently used apps were and then made adjustments to my existing layout based on that information.

The results weren’t too drastic, it turns out I already had a pretty good handle on what I use my iPad for. But I demoted Terminology, 1Password, and Blink into my ⌥ folder. Those are three apps that I’m incredibly passionate about, but it turns out I don’t launch them very often. In the case of 1Password, I use it everyday, but almost exclusively through the app’s action extension.

The demotion of those three apps gave me the opportunity to surface Instagram, Screens, and Pages to the top level of my home screen. Instagram was an app that I was trying to hide from my home screen to limit my usage. But over the summer, everyone’s posting beautiful vacation photos and I’m finding myself launching the app more frequently. And I’m not sure if my time away from the app or the increased number of photos in my timeline had any influence on the service’s advertising algorithm, but I haven’t seen nearly as many annoying ads in my feed.

I also swapped the locations of Edit and Bear. I rarely make changes to my device’s dock, but I find myself tapping on Edit’s icon at times when I previously would have launched Bear. And my Screen Time statistics back that up. I’ve spent about an hour-and-a-half in Edit over the past week and less than half-an-hour in Bear. That’s a testament to Edit’s utility — despite its relatively small feature set, I still spend more time using it than the vast majority of the apps on my iPad.

Notable Changes:

The only adjustment I’ve made to my iPhone home screen is the addition of Vekt and Happy Scale on my second screen. I should be working on a piece relating to weight tracking apps soon and these two are on my short list of apps to consider.

Notable Changes:

I moved some apps around based on usage, but the biggest change was deleting Infuse from our Apple TV. It’s a beautiful app with a lot of nice features, but the app didn’t do a great job of tracking our playback between devices. We’d frequently have to manually select the next episode because the app didn’t offer it to us. I also wasn’t happy with its Top Shelf extension, which put too much of a focus on recently added items instead of on shows we’ve been watching lately.

I’m not thrilled about going back to the Plex app — it’s still a bit clunky. But it’s much more reliable than the alternatives and that’s more important than aesthetics.

Notable Changes:

I installed the watchOS 5 beta late in the month and haven’t made any changes aside from adding the Siri watch face to test out all of its new capabilities. My initial impressions aren’t great, though. Maybe this will change when iOS 12 launches and more apps are built with the Siri face in mind, but in its current state, I haven’t found the Siri face to surface enough relevant information to supplant my other watch faces.

Browse the Home Screens Series.

I love reading about home screen setups and the thought process behind them. I find it fascinating how much differentiation can exist, even with the relatively restrictive rules of iOS’s SpringBoard.